[see HATCH.]. A framework of boards sliding in grooves, to be raised in time of flood; a sluice, floodgate, lit. and fig.
1587. Turberv., Epit. & Sonn. (1837), 299.
| I am the fish, you are the floode, | |
| my heart it is that hangs on hooke: | |
| I cannot liue if you doe stoppe, | |
| the floudhatch of your frendly brook. |
1596. Fitz-Geffray, Sir F. Drake (1881), 26.
| Who at your pleasures drawe, or else let downe | |
| The floud-hatches of all spectators eies; | |
| Whose ful-braind temples deck’t with laurell crowne, | |
| Ore worlds of harts with words do tirannize. |
1806. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Tristia, Wks. 1812, V. 340.
| The Muse one minute shall suspend her Lays; | |
| Or like a Miller’s, Sir, my wheel, | |
| Fatigued, shall some small respite feel: | |
| And so I close the flood-hatch, of your praise. |
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 319. At the end of which wall another flood-hatch is fixed on a level with the bed of the river.
1880. in W. Cormw. Gloss.
