Shvitz
noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Sweat. countable, uncountable
- 2 A traditional Jewish steambath of Eastern European origin. countable, uncountable
"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 A sauna or sauna session. broadly, countable, uncountable
"“Hey, hey, Jimmy Brogan. Thanks for meeting me.” “Welcome to the schvitz, kid. The most comfortable place on Earth. It's like crawling back into your mother.” “Is that something people wanna do?”"
- 1 To sweat. informal, intransitive
"Soon, the '80s and '90s guy was finding drums to pound and sweat lodges in which to shvitz out rivulets of shame."
Example
More examples"It was not, or not only, the heat and ripeness of the shvitz that were making Litvak’s pulse thrum and his head spin."
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.
Related phrases
More for "shvitz"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.