sweats

1. 1
   nouncolloquialplural

   A matching set of loose, comfortable clothing, typically a top and pants, worn for exercise or lounging.

   Most of the team changed into sweats after the game to cool down.

   She packed a pair of sweats for the long flight so she could rest comfortably.

   Similartracksuit

   Note

   Clothing vocabulary that behaves like trousers. It is plural-only, so it takes a plural verb (her sweats are in the wash) and is counted as a pair of sweats rather than a sweat. It is the informal counterpart of sweatsuit, at home in talk about the gym or the couch and out of place on a formal dress code.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of sweat.

   He sweats through his shirt within minutes of stepping outside.

   The pipe sweats in summer when chilled water moves through it.

   Note

   The verb form that shares its spelling with the noun plural, so only the sentence reveals which is meant: he sweats, but cold sweats. It carries every use of the verb, intransitive and transitive alike. A runner sweats; a sauna sweats its bathers; an employer who exploits workers sweats them for their labor; and, informally, a player sweats when straining hard to win.

3. 3
   noun

   Plural of sweat.

   She woke from drenching sweats more than once during the illness.

   The withdrawal left him shaking through hot and cold sweats for days.

   Note

   A plural that pushes against its noun. Every sense of the singular, from the fluid itself to toil, is usually uncountable, so the plural counts episodes rather than amounts: hot and cold sweats, drenching sweats in the night. The same plural has also settled into words of its own, from the loungewear to a fit of nerves, each of which exists only in this form.

4. 4
   nouncolloquialplural

   A state of nervousness or anxiety, often felt as a sudden wave of unease.

   He had the sweats all morning before the big interview.

   The audit notice gave the whole accounting team the sweats.

   Similarjitters, nerves, willies

   Note

   Nerves borrowing the body's language: anxiety is named by what it does to the skin. It shares its article-and-case pattern with the illness sense; the Tri City Herald wrote in 1989 that traffic court "can bring on a case of the sweats," setting it beside stomach butterflies. Both are informal names for ordinary dread, suited to anecdote rather than clinical description.

5. 5
   nouncolloquialplural

   Any illness marked by heavy, copious perspiration.

   Travelers who caught the sweats in the lowlands rarely recovered quickly.

   The garrison was thinned by the sweats long before any battle began.

   Note

   An illness named by its symptom, and almost always used with the article: you have the sweats, catch the sweats, or come down with a bad case of the sweats, the way one has the flu. It is casual and loose, which is why it so often arrives with a question about what the real illness might be.

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