(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.
Stickleback
Definition:
(v. t.) Any one of numerous species of small fishes of the genus Gasterosteus and allied genera. The back is armed with two or more sharp spines. They inhabit both salt and brackish water, and construct curious nests. Called also sticklebag, sharpling, and prickleback.
Example Sentences:
(1) Territorial sticklebacks were habituated to a male conspecific confined to a clear glass tube in a two stage experiment.
(2) The activity of the three enzymes was determined in the liver of ten-spined stickleback, a host of S. pungitii plerocercoids.
(3) Blood cells from Baltic salmon, Salmo salar, three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus, eel pout, Zoarces viviparus, crucian carp, Carassius carassius, African catfish, Clarias gariepinus, and reedfish, Calamoichthys calabaricus, were incubated with tritiated 11 beta-hydroxyandrostenedione (OHA) or 11-ketoandrostenedione (OA).
(4) The distribution of olfactory fibers in the brain of the three-spined stickleback was visualized by means of immunohistochemistry.
(5) At one extreme they are well developed (macrosmatic) such as in sharks and eels, and at the other they are poorly developed (microsmatic) such as in pike and stickleback.
(6) Stickleback Vg can be purified by con A-Sepharose chromatography.
(7) The costs of parental behaviour (fanning) were examined in male 1+ and 2+ three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) by comparing the loss of wet mass incurred by starved parental males during the egg care period to those incurred by starved non-parental males during this same period.
(8) Kidney cells of the marine stickleback Spinachia have been studied with histochemical methods for the demonstration of glycoconjugates.
(9) The effect of administration of homologous prolactin on fanning behavior, an important aspect of parental care in sticklebacks and many other teleost fish, was studied.
(10) In the corpuscles of Stannius of sticklebacks and eels two cell types are described of presumably endocrine nature.
(11) These branches are only occasionally observed in the sensory epithelium of the nine-spined stickleback.
(12) Tritiated androstenedione was in vitro aromatized to estrone and estradiol by the stickleback brain.
(13) These findings suggest the existence of a physiological positive feedback within the gonadal-pituitary axis of the male stickleback when stimulated into its breeding condition by long photoperiod.
(14) The findings strongly suggest that the male sex hormone may exert a double control on the renal cells in the stickleback, at both the cytoplasmic and nucleolar levels.
(15) The results obtained demonstrate that administration of cyproterone acetate to male sticklebacks has an inhibitory effect on renal target cells, apparently indistinguishable from the changes induced by lack of male sex hormone, and that this drug may be a valid substitute for castration in fish.
(16) Thus, the three-spined stickleback and the nine-spined stickleback show considerable differences in the organization of the sensory regions of the olfactory epithelium.
(17) Gasterosteus aculeatus was the most heavily infected fish with 4 larval cestode species; for two of them (D. ditremum and S. solidus) the three-spined stickleback was found to be the required fish intermediate host.
(18) Field observations at one site on brown trout (Salmo trutta) and three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) concurrently infected with mature Neoechinorhynchus rutili, together with the knowledge that large trout can be piscivorous in habit led to the proposition that the post-cyclic transmission of N. rutili may occur between these fish species.
(19) No significant mortality of caged stickleback fish occurred in these pools.
(20) The electrophoretic pattern of a sixth locus, mitochondrial NADP-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH), was found to be sexually dimorphic but otherwise invariant in sticklebacks.