sweating

Pluralsweatings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The release and evaporation of sweat, a watery fluid given off by glands in the skin of mammals.

   Excessive sweating can lead to dehydration if lost fluids aren't replaced.

   Sweating is the body's main way of regulating temperature in warm conditions.

   Similarperspiration, diaphoresis

   Note

   Middle English already had the word as sweting, simply sweat plus the gerund ending -ing, and every other use of sweating grows from that formation. It can be counted when it names separate episodes rather than the process. Oliver Sacks's Awakenings (1973) describes a patient who "suffered from constant sweatings." Its learned synonyms include diaphoresis, hidrosis and sudation.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of sweat.

   She was sweating heavily by the end of the workout.

   The cold pipes were sweating in the humid basement.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of the verb, and those uses divide on whether an object follows. Without one, a runner is sweating in the heat or, informally, sweating over a hard job or a competitive match. With one, something is sweating a person, making them perspire or squeezing labor out of them by oppression. As a gerund it stands as a noun, close to the bodily noun.

3. 3
   adjective

   Producing or giving off sweat.

   The sweating wrestler struggled to keep his grip on his opponent.

   A sweating brow betrayed his nervousness during the interview.

   Similarsweaty

   Oppositedry

   Note

   Here the participle has settled into an adjective. It sits before a noun, as in a sweating man or a sweating brow, and it can even be graded: more sweating, most sweating. Sweaty is its nearest everyday synonym. Asweat is a dated one, and the learned sudorific and sudoriferous belong to more technical prose.

4. 4
   nounfigurativelycountable or uncountable

   The gentle cooking of vegetables in oil or butter over low heat, softening them without browning.

   Sweating the leeks first gives the sauce a deeper, sweeter flavor.

   The chef recommends a long, gentle sweating of the shallots before adding stock.

   Similarsoftening

   Note

   Kitchens borrowed this term by figure from the body. Vegetables over gentle heat give up their moisture the way skin does, and the technique is named for it. Recipes mostly use the verb (sweat the onions), and the noun follows from it (a long sweating of shallots). Keep the heat low. Once the vegetables brown, the cook has moved on to a different technique.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   Mucilage, the sticky plant fluid given off especially by cocoa beans.

   During fermentation, the sweating drains away from the cocoa mass into collection channels.

   Growers monitor the sweating to judge when the beans are ready for drying.

   Similarmucilage

   Note

   Botany uses the word for a substance, not an activity: the sticky mucilage that plant matter gives off, above all the pulp around cocoa beans, which drains away during fermentation. Nothing bodily is meant. The image is borrowed from the bodily sense, with plant tissue releasing moisture the way skin does. In this sense, the sweating is something you can collect.

Showing meanings only. Show all 5