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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

sweat.

Fluid that exits the body through pores in the skin usually due to physical stress and/or high temperature for the purpose of regulating body temperature and removing certain compounds from the circulation.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/swɛt/
  1. Fluid that exits the body through pores in the skin usually due to physical stress and/or high temperature for the purpose of regulating body temperature and removing certain compounds from the circulation.

    uncountable · usually
  2. The state of one who is sweating; diaphoresis.

    uncountable · usually
    Just thinking about the interview tomorrow puts me into a nervous sweat.
  3. Hard work; toil.

    figuratively · uncountable · usually
  4. Moisture issuing from any substance.

    figuratively · uncountable · usually
  5. A short run by a racehorse as a form of exercise.

    uncountable · usually
  6. The sweating sickness.

    historical · uncountable · usually
  7. A soldier (especially one who is old or experienced).

    UK · slang · uncountable · usually
  8. An extremely or excessively competitive player.

    slang · uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

From Middle English swete, swet, swate, swote, from Old English swāt, from Proto-Germanic *swait-, *swaitą, from Proto-Indo-European *swoyd- (“to sweat”), o-grade of *sweyd- (“to sweat”). Cognate with West Frisian swit, Dutch zweet, German Schweiß, Danish sved, Norwegian Bokmål svette, Norwegian Nynorsk sveitte, Swedish svett, Yiddish שוויצן (shvitsn) (English shvitz), Latin sudor, French sueur, Italian sudore, Spanish sudor, Portuguese suor, Persian خوی (xway, “sweat”), Sanskrit स्वेद (svéda), Lithuanian sviedri, Tocharian B syā-, Albanian djersë, and Welsh chwys.

verb/swɛt/
  1. To emit sweat.

    intransitive
  2. To cause to excrete moisture through skin.

    transitive
  3. To cause to excrete moisture through skin. To cause to perspire.

    transitive
    His physicians attempted to sweat him by most powerful sudorifics.
  4. To work hard.

    informal · intransitive
    I've been sweating over my essay all day.
  5. To work hard. To be extremely dedicated to winning a game; to play competitively.

    informal · intransitive
    There's no way we can win. These guys are sweating so hard.
  6. To extract money, labour, etc. from, by exaction or oppression.

    informal · transitive
    to sweat a spendthrift
    to sweat labourers
  7. To worry.

    informal · intransitive
  8. To worry about (something).

    informal · transitive
    Don't sweat it!
    to sweat the small stuff
  9. To emit, in the manner of sweat.

    transitive
    to sweat blood
  10. To emit moisture.

    intransitive
    The cheese will start sweating if you don't refrigerate it.
  11. To have drops of water form on (something's surface) due to moisture condensation.

    intransitive
    Coasters are a good way to stop a sweating glass from damaging your table.
  12. To solder (a pipe joint) together.

    intransitive
  13. To stress out, to put under pressure.

    slang · transitive
    Stop sweatin' me!
  14. To cook slowly at low heat, in shallow oil and without browning, to reduce moisture content.

    intransitive · transitive
  15. To remove a portion of (a coin), as by shaking it with others in a bag, so that the friction wears off a small quantity of the metal.

    archaic · transitive
  16. To suffer a penalty; to smart for one's misdeeds.

    intransitive
  17. To take a racehorse for a short exercise run.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English sweten, from Old English swǣtan, from Proto-Germanic *swaitijaną (“to sweat”). Compare Dutch zweten, German schwitzen, Danish svede. Doublet of shvitz.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.