Meaning
To make an offer, deal or proposal more attractive by adding money or extra incentives; also, in card games, to add money to the pot to encourage other players to stay in and bet. Now standard negotiation language ('the employer sweetened the pot with a company car') wherever an inducement is piled onto a deal. American in flavour; the pot and kitty versions coexist, and up the ante is a near-synonym from the same gaming world. Usually transitive. Despite the sweetness imagery, it is unrelated to taste-based idioms such as this site's sweet tooth, which come from flavour, not the card table. Regional use: United States origin; widely understood in British and international English.
Origin
A poker term gone mainstream. The pot is the pool of stakes at the centre of the table, and to sweeten it is to add money so the game looks worth playing. The OED's factsheet for the verb sweeten records the word itself from 1552 (Richard Huloet) and tags a poker sense to the 1890s among its subject branches. Ammer's Dictionary of Cliches says the term dates from about 1900 and alludes to card games such as poker, where it means to add money to the pool - the two references converging on the same decade. McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Idioms still records the literal use - to increase the amount of money bet in a card game with hopes of encouraging other players to bet more enthusiastically - alongside the figurative one. The sister phrase sweeten the kitty swaps in another gambling word for a pool of money.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- sweeten the deal
- sweeten the kitty
- sweeten the offer
Usage Examples
- The buyer sweetened the pot by offering to waive the inspection and cover the closing costs.
- With no volunteers for the weekend shift, the manager sweetened the pot with double pay.
- He was unmoved until they sweetened the pot with a corner office and an extra week of vacation.