Sweater

How to spell sweater

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sweater

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sweater mean?

1. nounA knitted garment worn over the upper body, typically with long sleeves and pulled on over the head.

Sweater in a sentence

• She pulled a thick wool sweater over her shirt before going outside.

• He left his favourite sweater on the back of the office chair.

Where does sweater come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is a straightforwardly English creation, built from the verb 'sweat' plus the noun-forming suffix '-er'. The verb 'sweat' descends from Old English 'swaetan', meaning 'to perspire' or 'to work hard', which in turn goes back to the same ancient root that gave Latin 'sudor' (sweat) and Sanskrit 'sveda'. The garment got its name in the late nineteenth century because heavy knitted jerseys were worn by athletes and rowers specifically to make them perspire and lose weight during training. The sense then broadened from a sporting sweat-inducing garment to any warm pullover. The spelling trap lives in that opening 'swea-' cluster, where the letters 'ea' produce a short 'eh' sound rather than the long 'ee' you might expect, the same quirk that confuses people writing 'sweat' itself.

How the word is built

• sweat (to perspire)
• -er (noun suffix denoting a thing that causes an effect)