sweats

Noun

sweat (usually uncountable, plural sweats)

1. (usually) 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.

   Synonyms:

   perspiration

2. (usually) The state of one who is sweating; diaphoresis.
   • Just thinking about the interview tomorrow puts me into a nervous sweat.
3. (figuratively, usually) Hard work; toil.
4. (figuratively, usually) Moisture issuing from any substance.
   • The Muses' friend (grey-eyed Aurora) yet
     Held all the meadows in a cooling sweat,
     The milk-white gossamers not upwards snow'd,
     Nor was the sharp and useful-steering goad1613, William Browne, Britannia's Pastorals
5. (usually) A short run by a racehorse as a form of exercise.
   • A Horſe that gains Fleſh in hard Exerciſe, should be ſweated at leaſt twice in ten Days; and he ſhould run near five Miles in Puſhes, that the Sweat may have Time to diſcharge. Those Horſes which are ſweat without Covering, or with a very thin one, should run a long Sweat, as wel call it, and ſtand...1740, Henry Bracken, Farriery improv'd
6. (historical, usually) The sweating sickness.
   • When the sweat comes back this summer, 1528, people say, as they did last year, that you won't get it if you don't think about it.2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate, published 2010, page 131

See all 26 meanings of sweat