sweet spot

Noun

sweet spot (plural sweet spots)

1. Any place that is optimal for obtaining a certain desirable effect or result.
   • Here's a way to start improving your balance right now. Let's tune into a reference point, the place on which you can feel your weight concentrated, the spot that will always let you know whether or not you are in balance. I call this reference point the "sweet spot" of your foot. The sweet spot is...1991 January, Mariam Sodergren, “Private Lessons: Third in a Series: Better Balance”, in Skiing, volume 43, number 5, New York, N.Y.: Times Mirror Magazines, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 113, column 3
   • Shelby figured if the dog was going to bite her, he'd have already done so. […] She found his sweet spot—a patch low behind his ear—and lightly raked it with her nails until his big eyes rolled back in contentment.2015, Debbi Rawlins, chapter 1, in Come on Over (Harlequin Blaze), Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin Enterprises, →ISBN, page 15
2. (figuratively) Any set of conditions that is optimal for obtaining a certain desirable effect or result.
   • Businesses hit a sweet spot—a place, time, or experience in which a company's brands, products and services, finances, leaders, and employees are in tune and in time with consumer neds, aspirations, and budgets—only when (no matter how global, or gigantic, the company) everything and everyone is...2007, Arun Sinha, “Growing around in Circles”, in Sweet Spot: How to Maximize Marketing for Business Growth, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 77
   • Six months old, a half-season project, they are already more watchable and more coherent than the second phase of the title-winning team of two years ago; but not at the level of the luminous, steamrollering [José] Mourinho Mk1 team, a rare concurrence of prime-cut talent and a manager in the sweet...2017 May 13, Barney Ronay, “Antonio Conte’s brilliance has turned Chelsea’s pop-up team into champions”, in The Guardian, London, archived from the original on 09 Sep 2017
3. (euphemistic, slang) The clitoris, prostate gland, or other internal center of sexual pleasure.
   • Then he knelt over her and began to make her wet with his fingers, finding her sweet spot the way he used to, so brilliantly, finding it, working it, moistening his finger from his lips and from herself, setting the fire raging in her now.2008, Peter James, “2 November 2001 [chapter name]”, in Dead Man’s Footsteps, London: Macmillan, →ISBN; republished London: Pan Books, 2014, →ISBN, page 442
   • Ragan began to move more slowly once he was in, but soon he was moving quickly, pounding his balls against Donovan's ass, unable to hold back, reaching his sweet spot over and over again until Donovan couldn't keep the screams from coming from his throat.2012 September, Shannon West, chapter 4, in Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright (ManLove Collection), [s.l.]: Siren Publishing, →ISBN, page 74
4. Any of several places on a bat, racquet, etc., with which to hit a ball, resulting in the latter rebounding with some optimal desirable effect, such as minimum vibration or maximum velocity.
   • He hit the ball with the sweet spot, resulting in a gapper.
   • The term sweet spot is used in describing that point or region of a tennis racket where the ball should be hit for optimum results. There are several definitions of this term, each one based on different physical phenomenon.1981 September, H[oward] Brody, “Physics of the tennis racket II: The “sweet spot””, in American Journal of Physics, volume 49, number 9, →DOI, pages 816–810
5. (extended reality) The spot of a lens in where image clarity is perfectly clear and sharp.