'sweaters,' as their victims significantly call them—who, in their turn, let it out again, sometimes to the workmen, sometimes to fresh middle-men, so that out of the price paid for labour on each article, not only the workmen, but the sweater, and perhaps the sweater's sweater, and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, have to draw their profit.
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., 1. 64. I have many a time heard both husband and wife—one couple especially who were sweating for a gorgeous clothes emporium—say that they had not time to be clean.
1882. Contemp. Review, lvi. 880. It is possible that several of the minor industries of the East End are absolutely dependent upon the fact that a low type of sweated and overworked labour is employed at starvation wages.
1883. Pall Mall Gaz., 29 Oct. Sweaters' hacks turning out frockcoats.
1886. Echo, 1 Dec. Recently a trad journal published a list of sweating firms in the clothing trade, each of which probably has grounds of action.
1887. Nineteenth Century, xxii. 489. They declared that they were being sweated, that the hunger for work induced men to accept starvation rates.
6. (old).—To pawn.
c.1811. Maher, The Night Before Larry was Stretched. A bit in their sacks, too, they fetched; They sweated their duds till they riz it.
Phrases.—In a sweat = (1) in a hurry, and (2) in a state of terror, impatient; to sweat coins = to remove part of the metal from coins (chiefly gold) by friction or acids, yet in such a manner that the depreciation is imperceptible.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Sweating. A mode of diminishing the gold coin, practised chiefly by the Jews, who corrode it with aqua regia.
1796. Wolcot, Peter Pindar, 109. His each vile sixpence that the world hath cheated, And his art that every guinea sweated.
1875. Jevons, Money and Mech. of Exch., 115. No one now actually refuses any gold money in retail business, so that the sweater, if he exists at all, has all the opportunities he can desire.
18[?]. Thor Fredur, Sketches from Shady Places [S. J. and C.]. By far the most scientific form of smashing is that which is called sweating—the modern equivalent for the ruder art of 'clipping,' so fully described in Macaulay's History. Here the galvanic battery is brought into requisition, the metal being dissolved equally from all the surfaces of the coin operated upon, and that, too, without impairing the sharpness of 'image or superscription.' Sufficient metal for the sweater's purpose being removed, the coin is polished afresh.
Sweat-box, subs. phr. The cell
used for prisoners while awaiting
appearance before a magistrate.
Sweater, subs. (Winchester).—1.
A servant. Hence sweat-gallery
= fagging juniors. See
Sweat and Swot.
2. (athletic).—A thick coat (or flannel jersey) worn by contestants after a finish until they can be rubbed down.
3. (Stock Exchange).—See quot.
1871. Atkin, House Scraps [Sweater]. A broker who works for such small commissions as to prevent other brokers getting the business, whilst hardly being profitable to himself.
4. See Sweat in all senses.
Sweat-pits, subs. pl. (old).—The
arm-pits.
c.1709. Ward, Terræfilius, v. 27. By nature she is almost as rank as a Red Herring, yet . . . she so Rectifies the Effluvia that arises from her Sweat-Pits, that she smells as fragrant as a Perfumer's-Shop next Door to a Tallow-Chandler's.
Sweep, subs. (colloquial).—1. A
sweepstakes.
