[f. LOCK sb. and v. + -AGE.]
† 1. The means of locking or fitting (pieces of timber) together. Obs.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 272. Whose Lockages [sc. of the roof of the Sheldonian Theatre] being so quite different from any before mentioned.
2. (See LOCK sb.2 9, 9 c.)
a. The amount of rise or fall effected by a lock or series of locks.
1770. J. Brindley, Surv. Thames, 2. The Length will be about a Mile, and the Fall or Lockage ten Feet.
1795. J. Phillips, Hist. Inland Navig., Addenda 5. The total lockage is five hundred and forty-four feet, viz. four hundred and ninety-six feet fall, and forty-eight feet rise.
1829. J. Macauley, Hist. New York, I. 184. The ascending and descending lockage is about one thousand and thirty-two feet.
1879. Daily News, 28 Aug., 3/2. From Chicago to Montreal … there are … 56 locks, and a total lockage of 564 feet.
b. Toll paid for going through a lock or locks.
1771. Act 11 Geo. III., c. 45 § 9. Which price or lockage shall be … painted … on Boards, on the said Locks.
1800. Colquhoun, Comm. Thames, xv. 483. The price of lockage is not to exceed 4d per ton per lock.
1819. Stat. Massach., 19 June. Toll or lockage at the lock or locks.
1856. Farmer’s Mag., Nov., 424. The expense of lockage, transhipment, &c.
c. The construction and working of locks; also, the aggregate of locks constructed.
1809. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 403/1. Nearly 200 feet of lockage.
1824. R. Stevenson, in Trans. Highland Soc., VI. 133. The great desideratum in the Railway-system, must doubtless lie in a convenient mode of lockage, for raising the waggons from one level to another.
1830. Blackw. Mag., XXVII. 459. To convert the … river by lockage into a channel capable of receiving … vessels.
1839. Southey, in Q. Rev., LXIII. 426. This line was … impeded … by an enormous quantity of lockage.
1853–4. Proc. Inst. Civ. Engin. (1854), XIII. 218. It was the same thing hydrostatically,… whether the lockage was up or down, or indeed, whether there was any vessel at all in the lock.
1861. Smiles, Engineers, I. iv. 452. Brindley’s plan was … to cut the level as flat as possible, in order to avoid lockage.
1883. Manch. Exam., 19 Dec., 4/5. The … drainage area of the coal-bearing rocks along the route of the proposed Canal would give a sufficient amount of water for lockage.
d. attrib., as lockage-system, -water.
1816. Mechanic, I. 319 (title), Method of saving lockage water, in Canals, Docks, and Navigation.
1861. Smiles, Engineers, II. 147. Powerful steam-engines were also erected to pump back the lockage water into the canal above.
1895. Forum (N.Y.), Aug., 750. The lockage system of the Welland [canal] is out of date.
