Crossword clues for sharper
sharper
- More acute
- Expert gambler
- A person who swindles you by means of deception or fraud
- Very sudden and in great amount or degree
- (music) raised in pitch by one chromatic semitone
- Sour or bitter in taste
- Extremely steep
- Harsh
- Marked by practical hardheaded intelligence
- (of something seen or heard) clearly defined
- Quick and forceful
- Having or demonstrating ability to recognize or draw fine distinctions
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sharp \Sharp\, a. [Compar. Sharper; superl. Sharpest.] [OE. sharp, scharp, scarp, AS. scearp; akin to OS. skarp, LG. scharp, D. scherp, G. scharf, Dan. & Sw. skarp, Icel. skarpr. Cf. Escarp, Scrape, Scorpion.]
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Having a very thin edge or fine point; of a nature to cut or pierce easily; not blunt or dull; keen.
He dies upon my scimeter's sharp point.
--Shak. Terminating in a point or edge; not obtuse or rounded; somewhat pointed or edged; peaked or ridged; as, a sharp hill; sharp features.
Affecting the sense as if pointed or cutting, keen, penetrating, acute: to the taste or smell, pungent, acid, sour, as ammonia has a sharp taste and odor; to the hearing, piercing, shrill, as a sharp sound or voice; to the eye, instantaneously brilliant, dazzling, as a sharp flash.
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(Mus.)
High in pitch; acute; as, a sharp note or tone.
Raised a semitone in pitch; as, C sharp (C[sharp]), which is a half step, or semitone, higher than C.
So high as to be out of tune, or above true pitch; as, the tone is sharp; that instrument is sharp. Opposed in all these senses to flat.
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Very trying to the feelings; piercing; keen; severe; painful; distressing; as, sharp pain, weather; a sharp and frosty air.
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones.
--Shak.The morning sharp and clear.
--Cowper.In sharpest perils faithful proved.
--Keble. -
Cutting in language or import; biting; sarcastic; cruel; harsh; rigorous; severe; as, a sharp rebuke. ``That sharp look.''
--Tennyson.To that place the sharp Athenian law Can not pursue us.
--Shak.Be thy words severe, Sharp as merits but the sword forbear.
--Dryden. -
Of keen perception; quick to discern or distinguish; having nice discrimination; acute; penetrating; sagacious; clever; as, a sharp eye; sharp sight, hearing, or judgment.
Nothing makes men sharper . . . than want.
--Addison.Many other things belong to the material world, wherein the sharpest philosophers have never ye? arrived at clear and distinct ideas.
--L. Watts. Eager in pursuit; keen in quest; impatient for gratification; keen; as, a sharp appetite.
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Fierce; ardent; fiery; violent; impetuous. ``In sharp contest of battle.''
--Milton.A sharp assault already is begun.
--Dryden. -
Keenly or unduly attentive to one's own interest; close and exact in dealing; shrewd; as, a sharp dealer; a sharp customer.
The necessity of being so sharp and exacting.
--Swift. Composed of hard, angular grains; gritty; as, sharp sand.
--Moxon.Steep; precipitous; abrupt; as, a sharp ascent or descent; a sharp turn or curve.
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(Phonetics) Uttered in a whisper, or with the breath alone, without voice, as certain consonants, such as p, k, t, f; surd; nonvocal; aspirated.
Note: Sharp is often used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, sharp-cornered, sharp-edged, sharp-pointed, sharp-tasted, sharp-visaged, etc.
Sharp practice, the getting of an advantage, or the attempt to do so, by a tricky expedient.
To brace sharp, or To sharp up (Naut.), to turn the yards to the most oblique position possible, that the ship may lie well up to the wind.
Syn: Keen; acute; piercing; penetrating; quick; sagacious; discerning; shrewd; witty; ingenious; sour; acid; tart; pungent; acrid; severe; poignant; biting; acrimonious; sarcastic; cutting; bitter; painful; afflictive; violent; harsh; fierce; ardent; fiery.
Sharper \Sharp"er\, n. A person who bargains closely, especially, one who cheats in bargains; a swinder; also, a cheating gamester.
Sharpers, as pikes, prey upon their own kind.
--L'Estrange.
Syn: Swindler; cheat; deceiver; trickster; rogue. See Swindler.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
a. (en-comparative of: sharp) n. (context dated English) a swindler; a cheat; a professional gambler who makes his living by cheating.
WordNet
Wikipedia
A sharper is an older term, common since the seventeenth-century, for thieves who use trickery to part an owner with his or her money possessions. Sharpers vary from what are now known as con-men by virtue of the simplicity of their cons, which often were impromptu, rather than carefully orchestrated, though those certainly happened as well. The 1737 Dictionary of Thieving Slang defines a sharper as "A Cheat, One who lives by his wits." In the nineteenth century, and into today, the term is more closely associated with gambling.
Sharpers were romantic figures in the eighteenth-century, valued as imaginative figures for their perceived social independence and ability to create new social networks of gangs. The appeal of an independent society, operating outside the law, has been imaginative evocative for centuries, but in eighteenth-century London philosophical thought, influenced by Thomas Hobbes and Rousseau's new formulations of social contract, the romanticization of thievery reached new levels. John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and Henry Fielding's novel Jonathan Wild are only two examples of sharpers as heroes, in these cases, to provide satirical ammunition against the British Prime Minister Horace Walpole.
Usage examples of "sharper".
Guardians, in ways to make his mind, his will harder than any metalloid, sharper than any blade or ray.
The nauseating odor of urine and feces was overlaid with the sharper scent of the combustible fluid.
My dear countryman played like a true sharper, much to my displeasure.
It was the very quintessence of air, quickening every sense so that he smelt more keenly, heard more clearly, saw things in sharper outline.
If, in the interval between his first showing himself in my story and its publication in a separate volume, anything had occurred to make me question the justice or expediency of drawing and exhibiting such a portrait, I should have reconsidered it, with the view of retouching its sharper features.
If it is ordained that thou shouldst advance the ends of the Brotherhood by being shark-bitten, or flea-bitten, or bitten by sharpers, to the detriment of thy carnal wealth, or, shortly, to suffer any shame or torment whatsoever, even to strappado and scarpines, thou art bound to obey thy destiny, and not, after that vain Roman conceit, to choose the manner of thine own death, which is indeed only another sort of self-murder.
Perhaps, in so doing, he may lay his hand on an even sharper weapon than those which he has already used against the sensationalist theory of morals.
This was the inn where Piccolomini and his wife were staying, and I found them there in the midst of a horde of cheats and sharpers, like themselves.
Nearby, there were the thimbleriggers and the sharpers dealing monte and faro, tossing chuck-a-luck, spinning roulette wheels, and shattering all the laws of mathematical probability.
As the sequence proceeds, there is a greater sense of honesty and lucidity, a sharper awareness of the risks of living in a changing world, but if we concentrate on Mathieu, Gomez and Brunet in their public or political roles, we are struck by the ultimately unpersuasive character of all their modes of commitment.
She anight be pushing seventy, but she was probably sharper than anyone else in the room, himself included.
Their suspense was the sharper because most of their missionary friends on the network were unaware that Operation Auca was in progress.
English gentlemen sharpers knocking about out back, you know, and Bogan might have been taking lessons from one.
She had a bony, pointed chin, an even bonier, sharper nose, and it seemed there were more warts growing hairs on her face than there was face.
This was the inn where Piccolomini and his wife were staying, and I found them there in the midst of a horde of cheats and sharpers, like themselves.