late 14c., "causing sweat;" 1580s, "soaked with sweat," from sweat (n.) + -y (2). Related: Sweatiness.
Entries linking to sweaty
sweat n.
Old English swat "perspiration, moisture exuded from the skin," also "labor, that which causes sweat," from Proto-Germanic *swaitaz "sweat" (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian swet, Old Norse sveiti, Danish sved "sweat," Swedish svett, Middle Dutch sweet, Dutch zweet, Old High German sweiz, German Schweiß), from PIE *sweid- (2) "to sweat" (source also of Sanskrit svedah "sweat," Avestan xvaeda- "sweat," Greek hidros "sweat, perspiration," Latin sudor, Lettish swiedri, Welsh chwys "sweat").
A widespread set of Slavic words (Polish, Russian pot "sweat") is from Old Church Slavonic potu, related to peku "heat," cognate with Latin coquere.
The Old English noun became Middle English swote, but later altered to the current form under the influence of the verb. Sweat of (one's) brow as a symbol of toil is from Genesis iii.19. Sweat equity is from 1968. Colloquial no sweat "no problem" is attested by 1953, said to be originally U.S. military jargon from the Korean War.
The universal and all-inclusive word today is "sweat." It covers just about everything: "no sweat" means no trouble, no cause for worry, nothing fouled up, don't fret. "It's a sweat" means a patrol looks tough, or an order to dig some more trench is an outrage, or simply that everything is messed up as usual. ["A Frontline Picture No Camera Could Get," Life magazine, March 16, 1953]
-y 2
adjective suffix, "full of or characterized by," from Old English -ig, from Proto-Germanic *-iga- (source also of Dutch, Danish, German -ig, Gothic -egs), from PIE -(i)ko-, adjectival suffix, cognate with elements in Greek -ikos, Latin -icus (see -ic). Originally added to nouns in Old English; used from 13c. with verbs, and by 15c. even with other adjectives (for example crispy). Adjectives such as hugy, vasty are artificial words that exist for the sake of poetical metrics.