sweeps

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of sweep.

   Two more sweeps of the broom cleared the last of the dust.

   The radar sweeps revealed several small aircraft near the coast.

   Note

   The ordinary countable plural, and a broad one. It counts actions, such as strokes of a broom, methodical searches or a cricketer's kneeling shots. It also counts people, since a sweep can be a chimney sweep or the steerer at a boat's stern. Keep it apart from the television ratings term, which has no singular and usually takes no article.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of sweep.

   The janitor sweeps the hallway before the first class begins.

   A cold wind sweeps down from the mountains every winter.

   Note

   One form serves both of the verb's constructions. With an object, it cleans or searches, as in "sweeps the floor" or "sweeps the building for bugs." Without one, it moves in a long arc or travels quickly, as when wind sweeps in. Curling uses it for brushing the ice ahead of a moving stone, so a player sweeps in front of the stone rather than sweeping the stone itself.

3. 3
   nounUSplural

   The Nielsen ratings collected several times a year to measure how many people watch each television show.

   Like a store's busiest sale weeks, when it puts its best products up front to draw the biggest crowds.

   Local stations save their splashiest programming for sweeps each year.

   Ratings gathered during sweeps help set the prices stations charge advertisers.

   Note

   An American broadcasting word that exists only in the plural. The -s is fixed, so no single "sweep" of ratings exists. It usually appears without an article: stations save stunts for sweeps, and advertising is priced after sweeps. The periods traditionally fall in November, February, May and July, when Nielsen measures local-market viewing and stations use the numbers to set their advertising rates.

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