1 to make sth sharper; to become sharper:
[VN] She sharpened her pencils and started drawing. * This knife needs sharpening. * [V] The outline of the trees sharpened as it grew lighter.
2 if a sense or feeling sharpens or sth sharpens it, it becomes stronger and/or clearer:
[VN] Her hearing was sharpened by fear. * The sea air sharpened our appetites. * Clare's kindness sharpened his awareness of the differences between them. [also V]
3 [VN] to make a disagreement between people, or an issue on which people disagree, clearer and more likely to produce a result:
There is a need to sharpen the focus of the discussion.
4 ~ (sth) (up) to become or make sth better, more skilful, more effective, etc. than before
SYNIMPROVE:
[V] He needs to sharpen up before the Olympic trials. * [VN] She's doing a course to sharpen her business skills. * We're looking to sharpen up the product's image.
5 [V, VN] if your voice sharpens or sth sharpens it, it becomes high and loud in an unpleasant way
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for sharpen is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is sharpen a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, sharpen is tagged as verb.
Does sharpen appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — sharpen appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
