Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To excrete perspiration through the pores in the skin; perspire.
  • intransitive verb To exude in droplets, as moisture from certain cheeses or sap from a tree.
  • intransitive verb To collect moisture in small drops from the air, as a cold water pipe.
  • intransitive verb To release moisture, as hay in the swath.
  • intransitive verb To ferment, as tobacco during curing.
  • intransitive verb Informal To work long and hard.
  • intransitive verb Informal To fret or worry.
  • intransitive verb To excrete (moisture) through a porous surface, such as the skin.
  • intransitive verb To excrete (wastes) in perspiration.
  • intransitive verb To have (moisture) condense in small drops on a surface.
  • intransitive verb To cause to perspire, as by drugs, heat, or strenuous exercise.
  • intransitive verb To make damp or wet with perspiration.
  • intransitive verb To cause to work excessively; overwork.
  • intransitive verb To overwork and underpay (employees).
  • intransitive verb To interrogate (someone) under duress.
  • intransitive verb To extract (information) from someone under duress.
  • intransitive verb Metallurgy To join (metal parts) by interposing cold solder and then heating.
  • intransitive verb To steam (vegetables or other food).
  • intransitive verb Informal To fret or worry about.
  • noun The colorless saline moisture excreted by the sweat glands; perspiration.
  • noun Condensation of moisture in the form of droplets on a surface.
  • noun The process of sweating.
  • noun A condition or instance of sweating.
  • noun Strenuous labor or exertion.
  • noun A run given to a horse as exercise before a race.
  • noun Informal An anxious, fretful condition.
  • noun Informal A sweatsuit.
  • idiom (no sweat) Easily done or handled.
  • idiom (no sweat) Used to acknowledge an expression of gratitude.
  • idiom (sweat blood) To work diligently or strenuously.
  • idiom (sweat blood) To worry intensely.
  • idiom (sweat bullets) To sweat profusely.
  • idiom (sweat bullets) To worry intensely.
  • idiom (sweat of (one's) brow) Hard work.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In tobacco manufacturing, to undergo the process of sweating. See sweating.
  • noun Moisture exuded from the skin, an excretion containing from one to two per cent. of solids, consisting of sodium chlorid, formic, acetic, butyric, and other fatty acids, neutral fats, and cholesterin; sensible perspiration; especially, the excessive perspiration produced by exertion, toil, the operation of sudorific medicines, etc.
  • noun The state of one who sweats or perspires; sweating; especially, such a state produced medicinally; diaphoresis.
  • noun That which causes sweat; labor; toil; drudgery; also, a sudorific medicine.
  • noun That which resembles sweat, as dew; also, moisture exuded from green plants piled in a heap: as, the sweat of hay or grain in a mow or stack.
  • noun A sweating process, as in tanning hides.
  • noun Sweating-sickness.
  • noun A short run of a horse in exercising him.
  • noun In the manufacture of bricks, tiles, etc., that stage in the burning in which the hydrated oxid of alumina in the clay parts with its water.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English sweten, from Old English swǣtan; see sweid- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English swāt, from Proto-Germanic *swait-, from Proto-Indo-European *swoyd- (“to sweat”), *sweyd-. Cognate with West Frisian swit, Dutch zweet, German Schweiß, Danish sved, Swedish svett, Yiddish שוויצן (shvitsn) (English shvitz), French sueur, Persian خوی (xway), Sanskrit स्वेद (svéda), Latvian sviedri, Tocharian B syā-, and Albanian djersë.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English swætan, from the noun swāt. Compare Dutch zweten, German schwitzen, Danish svede.

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Examples

  • Most of them are devoted participants who return every month, but for a few others the sweat is a new experience.

    Into a realm of spirits: a Native American sweat lodge ceremony 2006

  • Most of them are devoted participants who return every month, but for a few others the sweat is a new experience.

    Into a realm of spirits: a Native American sweat lodge ceremony 2006

  • CONNICK: I'm telling you, you know, they offered him the opportunity with Habitat you have to put in what they call sweat equity and help build your own house.

    CNN Transcript Sep 13, 2007 2007

  • The key though is that they use non-Writers Guild underpaid writers who actually tried to sue a number of the producers of shows like "The Bachelor" in -- about a year or so ago because they said they worked in what they called sweat shop/labor conditions.

    CNN Transcript Nov 11, 2007 2007

  • This fluid can therefore no longer find its way through them, though they still give passage to the humour which we call sweat; and especially so when the body is heated, and the mouths of the small vessels are dilated.

    On the Parts of Animals 2002

  • He claimed that Sunanda Pushkar has four per cent shares in the company which he described as sweat equity and not free equity.

    IBN Top Headlines 2010

  • Declaring "sweat is my sanity," Palin also said some of her worst days on the campaign trail were those when McCain staffers did not schedule time for her to run.

    Palin confident she can outrun Obama 2009

  • Aw man, the sweat is pouring down my back now, I'm having crazy hot flashes, and I'm so nervous that I can't even dial my momma on the phone.

    Blog for Democracy: September 2009 Archives 2009

  • Aw man, the sweat is pouring down my back now, I'm having crazy hot flashes, and I'm so nervous that I can't even dial my momma on the phone.

    CBCF - Day 4 (Blog for Democracy) 2009

  • Mexican farmers had it okay, but now they work in sweat shops making our junk.

    Matthew Yglesias » American Manufacturing is Very Productive 2010

Comments

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  • sWEaT

    November 20, 2009

  • sweat shop is a place where people has to work long hours, with poor working conditions and a low pay.

    November 16, 2010

  • His audience likes the no-frills urgency, the sense that he’s digging to the heart of impossibly complex conundrums, the feeling that they’re observing a bona fide philosopher sweat out the truth under pressure.

    sweat out Slang To endure anxiously: sweat out an exam.

    sweat out Slang To await (something) anxiously: sweat out one's final grades.

    January 18, 2018