sweat

1. Origins, structure, and basic meaning

• Structure: 汗 has 6 strokes and denotes sweat.
• Basic usage: 汗 is read あせ, and 冷や汗 is read ひやあせ.

2. Common pitfalls and similar expressions

• Expressions for sweating
  • 額に汗をかいた means that someone sweated on their forehead. The action of sweating is expressed as 汗をかく.
  • 汗で濡れた服 means clothes wet with sweat.
  • で marks the cause of the wetness.
• A cold sweat from anxiety or alarm
  • 大事な書類をなくしたと思い、冷や汗をかいた means that someone broke into a cold sweat thinking they had lost an important document. It does not establish that the document was actually lost.
  • 冷や汗が出た also means that someone broke into a cold sweat.
  • Unlike 冷や汗をかいた, the expression with 出た marks the sweat with が.