sweat hole

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English swet hole, a partial calque of Old English swātþyrl (“pore”, literally “sweat-hole”). Cognate with German Schweißloch (“pore, sweat hole”), Danish swedehul (“pore”), Icelandic svitahola (“pore”).

Alternative forms

• sweat-hole
• swete-holle (obsolete)

Noun

sweat hole (plural sweat holes)

1. (rare, archaic or nonstandard) An opening in the skin through which sweat is excreted; pore.
   • 2012, Nadia Magnenat Thalmann, Daniel Thalmann, Communicating with Virtual Worlds, page 140:

     Skin surface consists of four elements such as furrows, ridges, hair holes and sweat holes.

   • 2022, Lodewijk C. Palm, Collected Letters Van Leeuwenhoek, volume 6, page 15:

     " […] if the sweat were found, to all appearance, to flow less freely through the supposed sweat-holes than elsewhere".

Etymology 2

From sweat +‎ hole.

Noun

sweat hole (plural sweat holes)

1. A large hole in the ground, heated with a fire, into which a sick person is brought wrapped in blankets (once the fire is removed), with a jug of water for making steam, the whole covered by an awning to hold the steam in; an underground sweat lodge.
   • 1907 January, Dillon Wallace, “The Long Labrador Trail”, in Poultney Bigelow, James Henry Worman, Caspar Whitney, editors, Outing Magazine, volume 49, number 4, page 432:

     On the lake shore were some other camping places that had been used within a few months and at one of them a newly made "sweat hole" where the medicine man had treated the sick .

   • 1990, Zoa L. Swayne, Carol Ann Goodrich Bates, Do Them No Harm!: Lewis and Clark Among the Nez Perce, page 207:

     The father went to the sweat hole and dug it wide enough for him to get inside with the limp body of his son.

   • 2009, Tom Hopwood, A Uganda Diary A Doctor on Safari, page 213:

     Close by there was a sweat hole in which the men were accustomed to taking Turkish baths before ceremonies and also to avoid the nagging of their womenfolk.

2. An uncomfortably hot, enclosed, space.
   • 2012, Danny Miller, The Gilded Edge:

     Even though the mercury was rising to treble figures in this underground sweat hole they were in, Vince saw that Guy Ruley remained cool and calculating, operating with all the heart of a humming refrigerator.

   • 2013, Mallory Kane, Special Forces Father, page 46:

     As soon as the doctor testified that some blustery old politician was crazy, they could give the kid back and get the hell out of this sweat-hole.

   • 2014, Tara West, Damned and Desirable:

     Even if I found a way out of this sweat hole, I doubted I'd survive long enough to claw my way out.

   • 2015, Spencer Leigh, The Cavern Club: The Rise of The Beatles and Merseybeat:

     It was a sweat hole but the acoustics were great and they sounded wonderful.