Word.ws English Dictionary

sharping

sharping is the present participle and gerund of sharp.

Noun

sharping (plural sharpings)

  1. The raising of the pitch of a note by half a step.
  2. Fraud; trickery; the acts of a sharper.

Meaning of sharp

Verb

sharp (third-person singular simple present sharps, present participle sharping, simple past and past participle sharped)

  1. To raise the pitch of a note half a step making a natural note a sharp.
    • That new musician must be tone deaf: he sharped half the notes of the song!
  2. To play tricks in bargaining; to act the sharper.
    • he made a shift yet to pick up a Sorry Living upon the Rook ; and not by Sharping alone , but now and then by downright Stealing1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To sharpen.

See all 49 meanings of sharp

Forms of sharping

pluralsharpings

Words formed from sharping

Phrases with sharping

Questions about sharping

What does sharping mean?
Sharping means the raising of the pitch of a note by half a step.
What is sharping the present participle and gerund of?
Sharping is the present participle and gerund of sharp.
What part of speech is sharping?
Sharping is a noun.
What is the plural of sharping?
The plural of sharping is sharpings.

Words near sharping in the dictionary

  1. Sharpeys
  2. sharpfin
  3. sharpie
  4. Sharpiegate
  5. sharpies
  6. sharping
  7. sharpings
  8. sharpish
  9. sharpishly
  10. sharpite
  11. Sharples

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sharping (page history and authors); sharp (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “sharping.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sharping. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.