sweatshop

[ swet-shop ]

noun

1. a shop, small factory, or other workplace employing workers at low wages, for long hours, and under poor conditions.

sweatshop

/ ˈswɛtˌʃɒp /

noun

1. a workshop where employees work long hours under bad conditions for low wages

sweatshop

1. 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.

Word History and Origins

Origin of sweatshop¹

First recorded in 1865–70; sweat + shop

Example Sentences

They lived for a while in Harlem while his mother worked in a sweatshop and got by with the help of food stamps.

From Seattle Times

In Hong Kong, Mr Lai worked in a garment sweatshop and taught himself English.

From BBC

Rainmaker Hall is the central meeting space, created inside an old hangar that was once a sweatshop with high, arching beams.

From Los Angeles Times

Then, last year, the Times tipped its hand by purchasing The Athletic, an online prose sweatshop of sports-content providers, for a mere half-billion-plus dollars.

From Salon

Depressingly, Lorenz seems to believe that recording videos that hawk clothes made in an Indonesian sweatshop fulfills some kind of liberatory ideal.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• branch
• cooperative
• firm
• industry
• laboratory
• mill
• shop
• workshop