[f. as prec. + -ER1.]
1. lit. One who sweats or perspires; spec. one who takes a ‘sweating bath.’
1562. Bulleyn, Bulwark, Bk. Sick Men (1579), 21 b. Take heede to sutch sweaters, and idle eaters.
1579. Twyne, Phisicke agst. Fort., I. xviii. 23. Compare with these, those sweaters, and belchers.
1611. Cotgr., Racletorets, such as rub sweaters in hot bathes.
b. with out: One who gives forth or exudes something in the manner of sweat; in quot. fig.
1612. Chapman, Rev. Bussy d’Ambois, I. i. 350. Every innovating Puritan, And ignorant sweater-out of zealous envy.
† c. Name for a variety of pear. Obs.
1629. Parkinson, Parad. (1904), 593. The Sweater is somewhat like the Windsor [pear] for colour and bignesse.
2. One who works hard, a toiler; spec. a tailor who worked for an employer overtime at home (now disused: see SWEAT v. 5 c). Also transf. (see quot. 1887).
a. 1529. Skelton, El Rummyng, 105. To trauellars, to tynkers, To sweters, to suynkers, And all good ale drynkers.
1628. trans. Mathieu’s Powerfull Favorite, 145. Of the blood of sweaters, and of the teares of the people.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, II. 304/1. Amongst the ‘sweaters’ of the tailoring trade Sunday labour … is almost universal.
1887. Atkin, House Scraps, 13. A Sweater.… A broker who works for such small commissions as to prevent other brokers getting the business, whilst hardly being profitable to himself.
1889. in Pall Mall G., 7 May, 1/2. Originally the tailoring was carried on in work-rooms belonging to the tailors’ shops, and the name of ‘sweater’ was first given as a term of reproach to the tailor who worked at home.
1895. Meredith, Amazing Marriage, ix. The dirty sweaters are nearer the angels for cleanliness than my Lord and Lady Sybarite out of a bath, in chemical scents.
3. A medicine that induces sweat; a sudorific, diaphoretic.
1684. W. Russell, Phys. Treatise, 13. Seeing it is evident, that Vomiting and Purging Medicines never become Sweaters or Binders.
1856. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Sports, II. VII. ii. § 2. 451/2. This is no doubt a strong sweater, but it upsets the stomach.
4. One of a set of street ruffians in the 18th century, who threatened or attacked people so as to make them sweat. Obs. exc. Hist.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 332, ¶ 2. These Sweaters … seem to have at present but a rude Kind of Discipline amongst them.
1878. Lecky, Eng. in 18th Cent., I. iii. 482. The ‘sweaters’ who formed a circle round their prisoner and pricked him with their swords till he sank exhausted to the ground.
5. One who exacts hard work at very low wages; an employer or middleman who overworks and underpays those working under him: see SWEAT v. 6 b, and cf. 2 above.
1850. Kingsley, Alton Locke, x. Were not the army clothes, the post-office clothes, the policemen’s clothes, furnished by contractors and sweaters, who hired the work at low prices, and let it out again to journeymen at still lower ones?
1869–70. Latham, Dict., Sweater … Middlemen between slopsellers and working tailors. Colloquial.
1879. Sims, Social Kaleidoscope, Ser. I. ix. 58. The half-starved women and men, who put the things together in top garrets in back slums, or are nigger-driven by a ‘sweater’ in an East-end workroom.
1890. Earl Dunraven, Draft Rep. Sweating Syst., § 7. The sweater may employ only two or three persons, or he may have two or three score in his service; but the great bulk of the sweated class work for small masters and in rooms or shops where from two or three to a dozen or twenty are employed.
6. One who ‘sweats’ gold coins: see SWEAT v. 15.
1868. Seyd, Bullion (1880), 550. To the sweater it really can make no difference whether the mint takes his lightened sovereigns.
1875. Jevons, Money, x. 115. No one now actually refuses any gold money in retail business; so that the sweater … has all the opportunities he can desire.
7. † a. pl. Clothes in which a horse or a man in training is exercised, to produce profuse sweating.
1828. Sporting Mag., XXIII. 104. A craving, strong horse, going along in his sweat, loaded with sweaters.
1856. ’Stonehenge,’ Brit. Sports, II. V. 420/1. Let him put on his sweaters, including a flannel pair of drawers, two pair of trowsers, a flannel jersey [etc.].
b. A woollen vest or jersey worn in rowing or other athletic exercise, orig. (cf. a) in order to reduce one’s weight; now commonly put on also before or after exercise to prevent taking cold.
1882. Floyer, Unexpl. Balūchistan, 74. Barja is resplendent in my rowing ‘sweater,’ covered by a scarlet blanket, worn as a coat.
1886. Referee, 12 Dec. (Cassell’s). Want of food … and exercise in sweaters.
1890. R. C. Lehmann, Harry Fludyer, 97. As for Pilling [the cox], the little ruffian actually weighs over 8 stone; but we’re going to make him run a mile every day, with four sweaters, and three pairs of flannel trousers on.
8. An occupation, etc., that makes one sweat or exert oneself. colloq.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 126/2. The business is a sweater, sir; it’s heavy work.
1856. Mrs. Stowe, Dred, xlii. You ought to read Fletcher’s book; that book, sir, is a sweater, I can tell you. I sweat over it, I know.
