Advertisement - Continue reading below

Definition of "sweeper" [sweep•er]

  • One that sweeps. (noun)
  • A carpet sweeper. (noun)
  • Sports A lone defender who plays between the last line of defenders and the goal in some defensive configurations in soccer. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "sweeper" in a sentence
  • "This political season the money vacuum sweeper is working as hard as ever – pulling in cash for the conventions, the candidates, and the parties from the pockets of Democratic and Republican faithful."
  • "Here the chimney sweeper is all alone, in a snowstorm — the snow already stained with the pollution from burning coal — perhaps homeless, covered head to foot in coal-soot; indeed, to enhance the effect of the image, it appears that Blake may have used some sort of coal mixture for his water-coloring, for the only real color in the plate is a rusty coal-oil brown."
  • "We’ve gone through several vacuums in the years that we’ve had our animals and have found that the best sweeper is one that has a bag."