sweatbox

plural sweatboxes

1. Any box or boxlike structure used to induce sweating, such as of hides or tobacco

   Australia Post has been accused of endangering staff with "sweatbox" uniforms and restricting earlier starts to save money.

   2009 January 31, Karen Collier, “Posties buckle in scorching heat”, in Herald Sun

2. USslangA jail cell.
3. UKslangA compartment in a police van to hold a prisoner being transported.

   […] she was finally hustled into a sweatbox, as prisoners and prison staff called it, and was off to meet her new home for the foreseeable future.

   2018, Kerry Barnes, Deceit

   1 more example

   They shoved me in the back of a police van and started driving to the cop shop. I was sitting in the sweatbox, wondering how the Dibble had got onto me so quickly, when I heard a voice from another section of the van say, 'Are you P from Macclesfield?'

   2013, Colin Blaney, Hotshot: The Story of a Little Red Devil

4. A small overheated cell or room used for solitary confinement or torture.

   Don't step in the wrong spot You will gеt caught When you step in the swеatbox They'll make you talk

   2023, “A Drone Opting Out of the Hive”, performed by Code Orange

   1 more example

   In the summer of 1945, one young boy died of heart failure while locked in a sweatbox, a popular corrective at that time.

   2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 143

5. slangA small nightclub packed to capacity where people get hot and sweaty.
6. animationThe room where a scene is reviewed.
7. animationThe review process that takes place in a sweat box.

present singular third person sweatboxes · participle present sweatboxing · participle past sweatboxed · past sweatboxed

1. slangtransitiveTo place (a person) in a jail cell or a police van compartment.
2. transitiveanimationTo review (work) in the designated room for such reviews.