sweep, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

sweep n.

1. (also sweeper) an unpleasant person [SE chimney sweep whose job, if not person, is regarded as unpleasant].

1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome III 154: The Jews advanced the chink, and then The Sweepers e’en, were fancy men! [Ibid.] 257: The sweepers are generally the worst-looking fellows in the ship.
1841		‘Catalani Joe’ Dublin Comic Songster 67: We met the moralizing sweep / With Lord Ullen’s daughter.
1847		Bell’s Life in Sydney 25 Sept. 3/1: I calls him a sweep, ansd you’re a Jew, my old cock.
1859		H. Kingsley Recollections of G. Hamlyn (1891) 42: ‘You treacherous young sweep, you shall hang for this,’ were Lee’s first words.
1864		Derby Day 117: Get on a ’bus an’ go home, you old sweep.
1878		J.H. Nicholson ‘Pat Brennan’s First Love’ in Opal Fever 123: Let go my hand, you sweep!
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Feb. 2/4: [He] appears to have considered that someone else was a ‘liar, a sweep, and a traitor,’ and to have said so.
1881		N.Z. Observer (Auckland) 29 Jan. 195/3: And he said in his haste, ‘All men are sweeps!’.
1885		Sporting Gaz. (London) 4 July 838/3: Sweep is a good word, even in its slang sense. Mr. FYFFE evidently hates gentlemen, but we ought not to blame him for what may be a natural antipathy.
1891		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 25 Sept. 1/4: ‘Chalo you sweep, why isn't the tub laiyar’.
1894		G. du Maurier Trilby 65: You filthy black Hebrew sweep!
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 25 May 532: Get up, you sweep!
1917		Union Jack 5 May 17: Come out of there, you mouldy sweeps!
1921		D.L. Sayers Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1977) 77: Well, I think George is behaving like a sweep.
1961		‘Frank Richards’ Billy Bunter at Butlins 104: Here you are, you young sweeps.

2. (N.Z. prison) a cell-check.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 182/1: sweep n. 1 a cell-check.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

sweep’s frill (n.) [such facial hair was typical of a sweep]

a beard and whiskers that run round the line of the chin, leaving the rest of the face clean-shaven.

1892

Tit-Bits 19 Mar. 421 2: The sweep’s frill would, I imagine, have made the Antinous, or the Apollo Belvedere, look undignified and slovenly [F&H].

sweep’s trot (n.)

a high-stepping form of amble, the best way to carry the sweep’s load of brushes etc.

1837

‘Handy Andy’ in Bentley’s Misc. Jan. 21: Andy, who started on his errand in that peculiar pace which is elegantly called a ‘sweep’s trot’.

In phrases

take a sweep (with both barrels) (v.)

(US drugs) to inhale cocaine (through both nostrils).

1938		D. Maurer ‘Lang. of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in Lang. Und. (1981) 109/2: To take a sweep or take a sweep with both barrels. To inhale bernice or crystallized cocaine.
1953		Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 315: take a sweep. To inhale a drug.