a. Forms: 4–5 swety, 6 swettie, 6–7 sweatie, 7 sweatty, swetty, 7– sweaty. [f. SWEAT sb. + -Y.]
1. Causing sweat: a. Heating, excessively hot. b. Toilsome, laborious.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Former Age, 28. The tyme … Þat men fyrst dede hir swety bysynesse To grobbe vp metal.
1599. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Hum., V. iv. Spare no sulphurous jest that may come out of that sweatie forge of thine.
1600. Cornwallis, Ess., I. ii. C iij. The life of Industries first fruite is somewhat sweatie, and painful.
1602. Shaks., Ham., I. i. 77. What might be toward, that this sweaty hast Doth make the Night ioyn-Labourer with the day.
1641. Protestation Protested, 10. Witnesse Dr. Hals sweatty discourses.
1673. [R. Leigh], Transp. Reh., 21. Captain Zuinglius, and John Calvin, converted more with Swords and Guns, then with their sweaty Preaching.
1709. Prior, First Hymn of Callimachus, 85. Those who labor The sweaty Forge.
1776. Mickle, trans. Camoens’ Lusiad, IX. 370. And measured ecchoing shouts their sweaty toils attend.
1821. Blackw. Mag., IX. 60. The sugar … which the hands of the sooterkin negro Reared … in the island of sweaty Jamaica.
1823. Byron, Juan, XIII. xlviii. ’Tis … a pity … To lose those best months in a sweaty city.
1908. Blackw. Mag., Dec., 770/1. Thank Heaven he’s let us alone this sweaty afternoon.
2. Covered with sweat; wet, moist, or stained with sweat.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. vii. 3. Hee … bayes His sweatie forehead in the breathing wind. Ibid. (1591), Daphn., iv. When the wearie Sun After his dayes long labour drew to rest, And sweatie steeds now hauing ouer run The compast skie, gan water in the west.
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., I. ii. 247. The rabblement … threw vppe their sweatie Nightcappes.
1664. Cotton, Scarron., Wks. (1725), 126. His sweaty Pumps are in my Nose still.
1759. B. Stillingfleet, trans. Hasselgran’s Swedish Pan, in Misc. Tracts (1762), 345. The plants ought not to be handled by sweaty hands.
1831. Trelawny, Adv. Younger Son, lix. The groans of the slaves,… their sweaty brows, wan eyes, and galled backs.
b. Of persons: Laborious, toiling.
1603. Dekker, Wonderfull Yeare, Wks. (Grosart), I. 108. The swetty hinde (that digs the rent he paies thee out of the entrailes of the earth) he is sent for.
1659. W. Chamberlayne, Pharonnida, II. 150. These glittering Jems had been By sweaty Labourers dig’d.
1667. Milton, P. L., XI. 434. Thither … A sweatie Reaper from his Tillage brought First Fruits.
c. transf. Full of or exuding moisture like sweat.
1600. Surflet, Country Farm, III. xxviii. 484. The apple tree … loueth to haue the inward part of his wood moist and swettie.
1623. Lisle, Ælfric on O. & N. Test., Ded. xx. Then selfe-sown Wheat shall grow and ripen afield, And sweatie vent of oke pure honie yeild.
3. Consisting of sweat.
1731. Swift, Poems, Strephon & Chloe, 12. No noisome whiffs, or sweaty streams.
Hence Sweatily adv.; Sweatiness.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 128/1. Terms of Art used in Barbing…. Rub the Hair with a Napkin, is to dry it from its swettiness.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Sweatiness.
1818. Todd, Sweatily, so as to be moist with sweat; in a sweaty state.
