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perspire

UK/pəˈspaɪə(ɹ)/US/pɚˈspaɪɹ/
verbC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — perspiration sits at #10,433leans spokenformal · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: perspiring

To perspire is the polite word for what skin does in a sauna. Sweat, in a nicer register.

English has a whole ladder here, and the old saying is that horses sweat, men perspire and ladies glow, which tells you rather more about the nineteenth century than about biology. Perspire is formal and slightly comic now, since nobody uses it about themselves without irony. The noun perspiration is commoner than the verb. Sweat is the plain word and is not rude.

Definitions of perspire

  1. 1verbperspireTo sweat.C2

    “He began to perspire heavily in the heat.”

Also accepted in games: sweat

Where it comes from

To perspire is to breathe through. Latin perspīrāre meant to blow constantly or breathe all over, because the skin was thought of as breathing, and it is the same spīrō that gives spirit.

  1. Latin

    perspīrō — to breathe everywhere, blow constantly

  2. Middle French

    perspirer

  3. English, today

    perspire

Built from

  • per · Latin — through
  • spīrō · Latin — to breathe

Borrowed from Middle French perspirer and its source Latin perspīrō (“to breathe everywhere, blow constantly”), from per (“through”) + spīrō (“to breathe”); see spirit.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 10 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

perspire in the wild

  • The steam and high heat make the bathers perspire.

    Sauna

  • The person may or may not also perspire excessively while awake.

    Night sweats

  • The high heat and steam cause bathers to perspire.

    Banya (sauna)

  • The name contains a play on the Swedish verb transpirera, to perspire.

    Transpiranto

  • Meat sweats is the concept that eating a meat-heavy meal will cause individuals to perspire profusely.

    Meat sweats

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the spīrō family

inspireexpire

perspire — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others

  • perspiration