(superl.) Having a very thin edge or fine point; of a nature to cut or pierce easily; not blunt or dull; keen.
(superl.) Terminating in a point or edge; not obtuse or rounded; somewhat pointed or edged; peaked or ridged; as, a sharp hill; sharp features.
(superl.) 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.
(superl.) High in pitch; acute; as, a sharp note or tone.
(superl.) Raised a semitone in pitch; as, C sharp (C/), which is a half step, or semitone, higher than C.
(superl.) 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.
(superl.) Very trying to the feelings; piercing; keen; severe; painful; distressing; as, sharp pain, weather; a sharp and frosty air.
(superl.) Cutting in language or import; biting; sarcastic; cruel; harsh; rigorous; severe; as, a sharp rebuke.
(superl.) Of keen perception; quick to discern or distinguish; having nice discrimination; acute; penetrating; sagacious; clever; as, a sharp eye; sharp sight, hearing, or judgment.
(superl.) Eager in pursuit; keen in quest; impatient for gratification; keen; as, a sharp appetite.
(superl.) Keenly or unduly attentive to one's own interest; close and exact in dealing; shrewd; as, a sharp dealer; a sharp customer.
(superl.) Composed of hard, angular grains; gritty; as, sharp sand.
(superl.) Steep; precipitous; abrupt; as, a sharp ascent or descent; a sharp turn or curve.
(superl.) Uttered in a whisper, or with the breath alone, without voice, as certain consonants, such as p, k, t, f; surd; nonvocal; aspirated.
(adv.) To a point or edge; piercingly; eagerly; sharply.
(adv.) Precisely; exactly; as, we shall start at ten o'clock sharp.
(n.) A sharp tool or weapon.
(n.) The character [/] used to indicate that the note before which it is placed is to be raised a half step, or semitone, in pitch.
(n.) A sharp tone or note.
(n.) A portion of a stream where the water runs very rapidly.
(n.) A sewing needle having a very slender point; a needle of the most pointed of the three grades, blunts, betweens, and sharps.
(n.) Same as Middlings, 1.
(n.) An expert.
(v. t.) To sharpen.
(v. t.) To raise above the proper pitch; to elevate the tone of; especially, to raise a half step, or semitone, above the natural tone.
(v. i.) To play tricks in bargaining; to act the sharper.
(v. i.) To sing above the proper pitch.
Example Sentences:
(1) Basal 20 alpha DHP levels remained low until a sharp rise at mid pro-oestrus.
(2) Whole-virus vaccines prepared by Merck Sharp and Dohme (West Point, Pa.) and Merrell-National Laboratories (Cincinnati, Ohio) and subunit vaccines prepared by Parke, Davis and Company (Detroit, Mich.) and Wyeth Laboratories (Philadelphia, Pa.) were given intramuscularly in concentrations of 800, 400, or 200 chick cell-agglutinating units per dose.
(3) Gonadectomy of females was accompanied by changes in the activity of individual HAS links in different direction--some reduction of ACTH in the hypophysis, a sharp and significant fall of the peripheral blood glucocorticoid level and a marked significant elevation of hydrococortisone production in the adrenal cortex in vitro.
(4) The University of the Arts London and Sunderland, Sheffield Hallam, Manchester Met and Leeds Met university have also experienced sharp declines in applications.
(5) A sharp decrease in oxygen uptake occurred in Neurospora crassa cells that were transferred from 30 degrees C to 45 degrees C, and the respiration that resumed later at 45 degrees C was cyanide-insensitive.
(6) In contrast to findings in the rat and dog, no sharp drop but a gradual fall in CLi was observed at decreasing FENa values down to 0.02%.
(7) A more specific differentiation, as indicated by the sharp increase in GAD levels which was concurrent with an increase in interneuronal contacts, lagged behind the initial growth.
(8) It appears that the decline in plasma IGF-I lags considerably behind the sharp fall in plasma GH levels and expression of hepatic IGF-I mRNA.
(9) Supplementation of Mg resulted in a sharp increase in serum PTH level with a rapid disappearance of the dissociation between the two immunoassays of PTH.
(10) A.CA animals were extremely susceptible, showing a sharp and sustained increase in parasitemia starting on day 12, followed by death no later than day 15 post-inoculation.
(11) There was a sharp transition with actin nearly saturated with S1: when the S1 to actin ratio was low, the kinetics were fast (K1 greater than 300 microM, k2 greater than 40 s-1); when it was high, they were slow (K1 = 14 microM, k2 = 2 s-1).
(12) Low calcium causes an increase in optimum frequency, a decrease in current threshold, and an increase in sharpness of tuning in both real axons and axons computed according to the Hodgkin-Huxley formulation; high calcium causes opposite effects.
(13) The Tea Party movement has turned climate denial into a litmus test of conservative credentials – and that has made climate change one of the most sharp divisions between Obama and Romney.
(14) The presence in lamprey kidney of a loop which is similar to Henle's loop in mammals and birds indicates that the development of the system of osmotic concentration conditioned by the formation in the kidney of the medulla and from a sharp increase in renal arterial blood supply.
(15) There is no longer a sharp dividing line between working and rentiering.
(16) We are going to see a sharp fall unless sellers hold the sector up by making aggressive offers.
(17) A sharp increase in the intensity of lipids biochemiluminiscence and decrease in the tissue homogenates biochemiluminiscence were observed during the period of progressive tumour growth on the 6-8 days following introduction of the virus.
(18) By no means is this a new theme, but it has taken on an added sharpness and urgency after the conferences.
(19) The blood lymphocytes were small with scanty cytoplasm, densely condensed nuclear chromatin, and deep clefts originating in sharp angles from the nuclear surface.
(20) In sharp contrast, the coverage provided by the various mainstream news channels and newspapers not only seems – with some exceptions – unresponsive and stilted, but often non-existent.
Shriek
Definition:
(v. i.) To utter a loud, sharp, shrill sound or cry, as do some birds and beasts; to scream, as in a sudden fright, in horror or anguish.
(v. t.) To utter sharply and shrilly; to utter in or with a shriek or shrieks.
(n.) A sharp, shrill outcry or scream; a shrill wild cry such as is caused by sudden or extreme terror, pain, or the like.
Example Sentences:
(1) But the bedeviled foray also works as a potent allegory on the slow, vice-like workings of conscience, as guilt hunts down the protagonists with the shrieking remorselessness of Greek furies.
(2) At the place where adorable meets obnoxious and the purr becomes a shriek, Leslie Mann is waiting to unload a howitzer of funny in your face.
(3) There is no doubt she is still traumatised, and her voice rises to a shriek as she describes it.
(4) Dozens of cleaners gathered outside the ministry as the officials drove up, shrieking in high-pitched voices that could be heard several city blocks away, to protest forced public-sector sackings the inspectors are demanding.
(5) The works of this period include Revelation and Fall (1966), in which a nun in blood-red costume and a megaphone shrieks expressionist poems of Georg Trakl, the Missa super l’Homme Armé (1968), a parody of a Latin Mass, and above all Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969).
(6) I gaze, bemused and, yes, fascinated, at curious anthropological artefacts such as Bride Wars or He's Just Not That Into You or Confessions of a Shopaholic, in which Kate Hudson or Ginnifer Goodwin or Isla Fisher play characters who might almost belong to a third gender, a bubble-headed one that emits ear-splitting shrieks, teeters constantly on the verge of hysteria and acts as an indiscriminate mouthpiece for the placement of overpriced tat.
(7) One group of women shrieked “Hillary!” as she bent down to greet them.
(8) Leaving a Murdoch-dominated media landscape with shows where, each week, shrieking irradiated cannibals sing power ballads as they compete for the right to die?
(9) What everyone can hear, loud as a burglar alarm, is the shriek of self-interest dressed up as national interest.
(10) Coyle is a parliamentary newbie elected only in May, so we might cordially warn him and all those Labour and Conservative MPs who have shrieked about “bullying” that they spent this week in presentational danger of reducing a bombing campaign to what Alfred Hitchcock called a MacGuffin – “a plot device that motivates the characters and advances the story”, but which is often unimportant in itself.
(11) They believe they have a good idea about who the core readership is, and one of the ways they prise a reaction from that readership is through shrieked alerts and cautionary tales about The Other.
(12) Instead listeners heard a piercing shriek as Pargetter slid off the roof of his stately home, after defying his wife's orders and yielding to the suggestion of his brother-in-law, David, that it would be a good time to take down the banner, in icy darkness in the middle of a family party.
(13) Fellows of the Royal Society aren't supposed to shriek.
(14) Hope, change ... and TV in a hundred years Photograph: AMC Todd: You remember last year when pale, hollow-eyed individuals wandered out onto the streets of our great nation, grabbing anyone they could see by the lapels and shrieking, "HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THIS SHOW BREAKING BAD?
(15) Vote Green and you’ll get Tories!” they shriek at me.
(16) Had this announcement been made about the Queen, headlines would have shrieked, “Abdication!” Aides have stressed that she will carry on.
(17) I used to worry that computers were to blame: that modern connectivity was steadily turning all of us into a bunch of fake, shrieking character actors.
(18) The risks are in being ignored entirely or forcing an interjection and appearing “shrill” – the death shriek for women trying to get ahead anywhere.
(19) Particularly arresting were the new uses Bush was making of her voice: tracks such as Pull Out the Pin and Suspended in Gaffa teemed with a panoply of exaggerated accents and jarring phrasings, as Bush applied thespian emphasis on particular words or syllables, and developed a whole new vocabulary of harsh shrieks and throat-scorched yelps.
(20) Every open space, including in the CBD, sees rockets and flares shriek through the dark without warning and silhouettes run from recently lit fizzing cylinders.