A dictionary of Confusable Phrases: More Than 10,000 Idioms and Collocations

sweat it out • sweat one’s guts out
sweat it out—(sl.) endure smth. unpleasant till it ends; await
smth. anxiously: Mr. Khrushchev is just sweating it out for
an announcement of a manned flight in orbit. Cf.: don’t sweat
it—(U.S. sl.) don’t worry about it: Joe Trippi suggests the best
solution: don’t sweat it. Just do what needs to be done now
in order to win.
sweat one’s guts out—(sl.) work very hard indeed: Here I’ve
been sweating my guts out all afternoon, and hardly anything
to show for it!
sweep clear for something • sweep clear of
 something
sweep clear for something —make room for smth.: Chances
are, important items will go missing when the table is swept
clear for dinner. Instead, decide what to do with each piece
of paper…
sweep clear of something —(also: steer clear of something ) stay
away from smth.; avoid smth.: We jump in and pull out only
a few strokes, and sweep clear of the dangerous rock. The
other boats follow in the same manner.
See also: make a clean sweep of something / sweep something
clean.
sweet and sour meat • sweet meat
sweet and sour meat—meat cooked with sugar and vinegar
or lemon juice: The sweet-and-sour meat appeared to have
more than its fair share of fat and gristle.
sweet meat—an article of confectionery; a fruit preserved
with sugar: This is a kind of sweet meat made of a soft marsh-
mallow jelly coated with pink sugar and powdered with
cocoanut chips.
sweet as a nut • sweet as pie
sweet as a nut—
1
. (coll.) said of smth. very tasty: The cab-
bage itself when it is taken out of the leaves is as white as milk,
and as sweet as a nut if eaten raw. 2. (UK sl.) quite satisfactory;
perfectly OK (used as a general term of approval): I treated it
[car] to a full service including plugs, air filter, cambelt change
and it’s as sweet as a nut.
sweet as pie —(coll., of people or animals) kind and friendly:
I first must give my love to Antonette, she arranged all of the
wedding details and she is as sweet as pie.
Note : The expression is not equivalent in meaning to the
phrase sweet as honey— very pleasant in speech or behavior, with
the implication of insincerity: She’s the kind of woman who’ll
be sweet as honey to your face and as malicious as hell behind
your back.