shvitz

English

Alternative forms

• schvitz, schwitz

Etymology

Borrowed from Yiddish שוויצן (shvitsn), from Old High German swizzen (Modern German schwitzen), from Proto-Germanic *swait- (English sweat), from Proto-Indo-European *swoyd- (“to sweat”). Doublet of sweat.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʃvɪts/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪts

Noun

shvitz (countable and uncountable, plural shvitzes)

1. Sweat.
2. A traditional Jewish steambath of Eastern European origin.
   • 2007, Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, 4th Estate (2010), page 343:

     It was not, or not only, the heat and ripeness of the shvitz that were making Litvak’s pulse thrum and his head spin.

3. (by extension) A sauna or sauna session.

Translations

sweat — see sweat

steam bath

• Yiddish: שוויצבאָד f (shvitsbod)

Verb

shvitz (third-person singular simple present shvitzes, present participle shvitzing, simple past and past participle shvitzed)

1. (intransitive, informal) To sweat.
   • 2017, David Friend, The Naughty Nineties:

     Soon, the '80s and '90s guy was finding drums to pound and sweat lodges in which to shvitz out rivulets of shame.