sharp
part of speech
adjective (sharp, sharper, sharpest); adverb (sharp)
meaning for a pupil
1) Sharp means having a thin edge or fine point that can cut or pierce: a sharp knife. tree →
2) A sharp pain is sudden and strong. tree →
3) A sharp turn or bend changes direction quickly. tree →
4) Sharp means clever and quick to notice. tree →
5) Sharp words are unkind or angry. tree →
6) «At three o'clock sharp» means exactly at three. tree →
7) In music, a sharp is a note a half-step higher (♯). tree →
8) Sharp can also mean brief and intense, over in a short, forceful burst. tree →
sense in the lessons
In safety, sharp objects (knives, scissors, glass, needles, tin lids) must be carried point down and kept from small children; tell an adult about broken glass. In maths, an acute angle looks sharp. In stories and everyday life, «look sharp» means hurry, and a «sharp eye» notices everything. Phrases: «sharp edge», «sharp as a tack» (very clever), «on the dot / sharp».
examples
- Be careful — the knife is very sharp. tree →
- I felt a sharp pain in my foot. tree →
- The road has a sharp bend. tree →
- Sharpen your pencil before the test. tree →
- Be at the gate at nine o'clock sharp. tree →
- She has sharp eyes and spotted the owl. tree →
- Wrap broken glass so its sharp edges can't cut. tree →
- Play C sharp on the piano. tree →
- The fight was short and sharp. tree →
note
Opposite: blunt (for edges), dull. Verb: «sharpen». «At 9 sharp» = exactly 9:00, not later. In music, ♯ is sharp and ♭ is flat.
In the corpora
- A parent may sound sharp for a second from shock; that is about the shock, not about the child being bad.
- Birds of prey, also called raptors, hunt other animals with sharp eyes, hooked beaks and gripping feet with curved talons.
- The blue tang has a sharp spine near its tail that it uses like a scalpel for defence.
- A blue tang has a sharp spine like a little knife near its tail that it can flick out to defend itself.
- Piranhas have razor-sharp teeth and tear at dead or injured fish, but most are timid scavengers that shoal for safety.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «sharp» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.