sweater

plural sweaters

1. A knitted jacket or jersey, usually of thick wool, worn by athletes before or after exercise.

   Synonyms: sweatshirt

2. USA similar garment worn for warmth.

   We could slip away / Wouldn't that be better? / Me with nothing to say / And you in your autumn sweater

   1997, “Autumn Sweater”, in I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, performed by Yo La Tengo

   Synonyms: jumper, pullover, jersey, cardigan, wooly

3. One who sweats (produces sweat).

   The cardiologist who administered Alex's exercise stress test on August 21 observed during that test that Alex was a profuse sweater.

   2007, John T. James, A Sea of Broken Hearts: Patient Rights in a Dangerous Profit-Driven Health Care System, →ISBN, page 29

   Synonyms: perspirer

4. One who or that which causes to sweat.

   We learn of the cruelty of some school or child-factory from journalists; we learn it from inspectors, we learn it from doctors, we learn it even from shame-stricken schoolmasters and repentant sweaters; but we never learn it from the children; we never learn it from the victims.

   1906, Chesterton, Charles Dickens, chapter 3

5. A diaphoretic remedy.
6. historicalAn exploitative middleman who subcontracted piece work in the tailoring trade.

   If the piecework system had not existed there never would have been any sweatees. The men who are sweaters, I am sorry to say, are men who formerly belonged to our union.

   1894, New York (State) Bureau of Mediation and Arbitration, Annual Report (volumes 7-8, page 158)

   Synonyms: exploiter

7. archaicOne who sweats coins, i.e. removes small portions by shaking them.
8. UKobsoleteA London street ruffian in Queen Anne's time who prodded passers-by with his sword-point.

   Among them were the "sweaters" who formed a circle round their prisoner and pricked him with their swords until he sank exhausted to the ground, […]

   William Lecky, quoted in 1965, Gilbert Geis, Juvenile Gangs (page 6)

present singular third person sweaters · participle present sweatering · participle past sweatered · past sweatered

1. transitiveTo dress in a sweater.