Words at Play : Top 10 Words of Summer
Do you perspire, or do you sweat?
Perspire derives from the Latin spirare, "to blow" suggesting vapors released by
the body. It emerged in the 1600s as a gentler alternative to the much older word sweat.
To some, perspire sounds more refined; to others, it seems a bit precious. As one London magazine
reported in 1791,
"It is well known that, for some time past, neither man, woman, nor child, in Great Britain or Ireland, of
any rank or fashion, has been subject to that gross kind of exsudation which was formerly known by the name
of sweat; and that now every mortal, except carters [and] coal-heavers... merely perspires."
(The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 70)