Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A house for sweating persons as a hygienic or curative process.
- noun In Spain, a long low hut in which sheep are closely packed the night before they are shorn, in order that the animal heat may soften the fleece and make it easier to cut.
Etymologies
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Examples
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The only real remedy they use, in common with other Indians, is the vapour-bath, or sweating-house.
Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory Volume I. John M'lean
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"I mean the smell of the vaporous rooms, and the boiling soapsuds, and the oil and cotton and the moisture from the hot flesh of a thousand men and women makes the best mill in England a sweating-house of this age of corruption."
The Measure of a Man Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr 1875
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[8] An Indian vapour-bath, or sweating-house, is a square six or eight feet deep, usually built against a river bank, by damming up the other three sides with mud, and covering the top completely, excepting an opening about two feet wide.
The Great Salt Lake Trail Henry Inman 1868
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Making a rude sweating-house on the banks of the river, he would shut himself up until in a reeking perspiration, and then suddenly emerging, would plunge into the river.
The Adventures of Captain Bonneville Irving, Washington, 1783-1859 1850
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Others are paddling about in-their tub-like canoes, made of the skins of buffaloes; and every now and then, are to be seen their sudatories, or vapour-baths, where steam is raised by throwing water on to heated stones; and the patient jumps from his sweating-house and leaps into the river in the highest state of perspiration, as I have more fully described whilst speaking of the bathing of the
Letters and notes on the manners, customs, and conditions of the North American Indians 1841
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Making a rude sweating-house on the banks of the river, he would shut himself up until in a reeking perspiration, and then suddenly emerging, would plunge into the river.
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Making a rude sweating-house on the banks of the river, he would shut himself up until in a reeking perspiration, and then suddenly emerging, would plunge into the river.
The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West Washington Irving 1821
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The ceremony took place in a sweating-house, or as it may be designated from its more important use, a _temple_, which was erected for the occasion by the worshipper's two wives.
Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 John Franklin 1816
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He placed his god at the upper end of the sweating-house, with his face towards the door, and proceeded to tie round its neck his offerings, consisting of a cotton handkerchief, a looking-glass, a tin pan, a piece of riband, and a bit of tobacco, which he had procured the same day, at the expense of fifteen or twenty skins.
Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 John Franklin 1816
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Several Indians, who lay on the outside of the sweating-house as spectators, seemed to regard the proceedings with very little awe, and were extremely free in the remarks and jokes they passed upon the condition of the sweaters, and even of Kepoochikawn himself.
Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 John Franklin 1816
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