sweet spot

noun

plural sweet spots

1

sports : the area around the center of mass of a bat, a racket, or the head of a club that is the most effective part with which to hit a ball

If the bat connects near its sweet spot … it vibrates very little, much as a tennis racket feels solid if you hit the ball on the racket's sweet spot.

—Sharon Begley

The shape of the clubhead has a pronounced effect on [golf] shots that are not hit out of the sweet spot of the club …

—Steen Winther

2

: an ideal or most favorable location, level, area, or combination of factors for a particular activity or purpose

Many doctors have concluded that there is something of a sweet spot on the age-education-experience continuum. They seek out clinicians who are no more than 10 years out of residency, old enough to have some mileage, young enough to be up to speed.

—Nancy Gibbs et al.

To seafood men, Fulton is the jewel of the Atlantic coast, the sweet spot on the seaboard, and the best fish from Maine to Florida rolls into the markets in refrigerated trucks.

—Jonathan Gold

"We are considering a lot of options with the site," says Zach Nelson, executive vice president of marketing. "I think we are right in the sweet spot of what's required to make e-business happen."

—Daniel Roth

The winery in Rutherford, best known for its loamy Cabernet Sauvignon, has a sweet spot of 8 acres for Chardonnay, which has produced spectacular wines.

—James Laube

Examples of sweet spot in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Image: Canon The R5 Mark II is Canon’s sweet spot for people shooting both photos and video, upgrading the full-frame mirrorless and 8K video-shooting R5 that launched in 2020. —Umar Shakir, The Verge, 17 July 2024

This is the economic sweet spot that Federal Reserve officials have been hoping for. —Courtenay Brown, Axios, 12 July 2024

Is there a Dunbar number—the social sweet spot where things work best—for communities? —Steven Levy, WIRED, 12 July 2024

For context, the sweet spot for home runs is anything 95 MPH and above with a launch angle between 25-35 degrees, which Ramirez has averaged in games recently. —David Faris, Newsweek, 9 July 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1919, in the meaning defined at sense 2