1887. St. James's Gaz., 4 June. It is a dreadful thing to say, but I felt that if I didn't utter a big swear at that moment something would happen.
1889. Harper's Mag., lxxviii. 258. What is new in it . . . may swear at the old furniture and the delightful old portraits.
Sweat, verb. (once literary; now
colloquial).—1. To work hard;
to drudge; to put in licks
(q.v.); also to sweat one's guts
out. Cf. modern (public school)
swat (or swot) = fagging, hard
study, especially mathematics,
whence swot also = a mathematician;
and as verb, to fag, or
study hard (see quot. 1864).
1551. Robynson, More's Utopia, ii. 11. Watching, waiting, and sweating; hoping shortly to obtain it.
1597. Shakspeare, Richard III., v. 3. 255. If you do sweat to put a tyrant down, You sleep in peace the tyrant being slain.
1612. Chapman, Widow's Tears, v. 5. Come, brother, thank the Countess; She hath sweat to make your peace.
1622. Fletcher, Spanish Curate, iii. 3. I could out-plead An advocate, and sweat as much as he Does for a double fee.
d.1667. Cowley, Tree of Knowledge, 4. Henceforth, said God, the wretched Sons of Earth Shall sweat for Food in vain.
1864. Hotten, Slang Dict., s.v. Swot. This word originated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in the broad Scotch pronunciation of Dr. Wallace, one of the Professors, of the word 'sweat.'
1881. Pascoe, Everyday Life in Our Public Schools. So much for work or swot, as the Harrovian, in common with other boys, somewhat inelegantly terms the more important part of instruction he receives at school.
1900. Kipling, Stalky and Co., 135. Fags bully each other horrid; but the upper forms are supposed to be swottin' for exams.
2. (common).—To suffer; to pay the penalty. Also (trans.) to beat; to pay out.
1610. Beaumont and Fletcher, Coxcomb, v. 1. Well, Jarvis, thou hadst wrongs, and, if I live, Some of the best shall sweat for't.
3. (old).—See quots.
1712. Steele, Spectator, 332. These sweaters . . . seem to me to have at present but a rough kind of discipline among them.
c.1780. Ireland Sixty Years Ago, (1847), 13. Others were known by the sobriquet of 'Sweaters and Pinkin-*dindies.' It was their practice to cut off a small portion of the scabbards of the swords which every one then wore, and prick, or 'pink' the persons with whom they quarrelled with the naked points, which were sufficiently protruded to inflict considerable pain, but not sufficient to cause death.
1823. Grose, Vulg. Tongue (3rd ed.), s.v. Sweating. A diversion practised by the bloods of the last century, who styled themselves Mohocks: these gentlemen lay in wait to surprise some person late in the night, when surrounding him, they with their swords pricked him in the posteriors, which obliged him to be constantly turning round: this they continued till they thought him sufficiently sweated.
4. (common).—To extort, lose, or squander money freely; to fleece (q.v).; to bleed (q.v.): see quot. 1784. Also to sweat one's purse = to cause one to spend everything.
1784. Ireland Sixty Years Ago, (1847), 14. They determined to amuse themselves by sweating him, i.e., making him give up all his fire-arms.
5. (common).—To work for (or employ labour at) starvation wages; to submit to extortion (or to extort). Hence Sweater = an employer of underpaid labour: usually a middleman between the actual employer and employed; a grinding taskmaster. Whence sweating-system, sweater, sweated, etc.
1850. C. Kingsley, Cheap Clothes and Nasty. At the honourable shops the master deals directly with his workmen; while at the dishonourable ones, the work is let out to contractors or middle-men—*
