Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See the quotation.
  • noun In tanning, a building in which the depilation of hides and skins is performed by sweating.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • They would stand guard to make certain he didn't fall asleep during the vigil, and Anda would join all the men in the sweat-house ceremony while Shandi waited with the women in the drum-circle outside.

    Elephant in the City 2010

  • Kel's words acted like that bucket of cold water after the sweat-house ceremony; they shocked him awake.

    Elephant in the City 2010

  • Those to the left and immediately at the door began crawling out, Shaman Celin first; although Darian was still trying to wrap his mind around what he'd just seen, he managed to respond when Kala nudged him and joined the rest to crawl in single-file out the sweat-house entrance.

    Elephant in the City 2010

  • Given that the notes to that piece begin "No Klamath or Modoc sweat-lodge can be properly called a sweat-house..."

    languagehat.com: RECORDING INDIAN LANGUAGES. 2005

  • A fresh-water lagoon, or lake, was near the present corner of Montgomery and Sacramento, and an Indian temescal, or sweat-house, beside it.

    Stories of California Ella M. Sexton

  • Indians, whether from the continual use of the sweat-house, or from their filthiness, or the little ventilation in their habitations, are weak and unvigorous; spasms and rheumatics, to which they are so much subject, are the consequences of their customs.

    What I Saw in California Edwin Bryant

  • They said, "The white men's medicine is better than our sweat-house."

    The Bird-Woman of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Katherine Chandler

  • On the Bidwell ranch is an old Indian "temescal," or sweat-house.

    Stories of California Ella M. Sexton

  • They must build a sweat-house beside a creek, sweat there all night and bathe regularly, after which they must rub their bodies with branches of spruce.

    Chapter 20. Tabooed Persons. § 2. Mourners tabooed 1922

  • They must build a sweat-house beside a creek, sweat there all night and bathe regularly, after which they must rub their bodies with branches of spruce.

    The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion 1922

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