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sweatshop

[swet-shop]
noun
  1. a shop employing workers at low wages, for long hours, and under poor conditions.
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Origin of sweatshop

First recorded in 1865–70; sweat + shop
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for sweat-shop

Historical Examples

  • Back of the sweat-shop shirt is the problem of the inefficient worker.

    The Principles of Economics

    Frank A. Fetter

  • It is the home of the sweat-shop, of the crowded tenement-house.

    The Spirit of the Ghetto

    Hutchins Hapgood

  • The only possible way to escape from the sweat-shop was to marry.

    Comrade Yetta

    Albert Edwards

  • For more than a month we've been out on strike, and now we can go back to the sweat-shop.

    Comrade Yetta

    Albert Edwards

  • It was not only the victims of the sweat-shop who find living a hard matter.

    Comrade Yetta

    Albert Edwards

British Dictionary definitions for sweat-shop

sweatshop

noun
  1. a workshop where employees work long hours under bad conditions for low wages
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for sweat-shop

sweatshop

n.

1892, from sweat + shop (n.).

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
sweat-shop in Culture

sweatshop

A small factory or shop in which employees are poorly paid and work under adverse conditions. Sweatshops were especially common in the garment industry during the early twentieth century.

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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.