"sharp end" meaning in English

See sharp end in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: sharp ends [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} sharp end (plural sharp ends)
  1. (informal, nautical) The bow of a ship. Tags: informal Categories (topical): Nautical
    Sense id: en-sharp_end-en-noun-EIOjVGtd Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 52 40 7 Topics: nautical, transport
  2. (figurative) The most difficult or dangerous aspect of something. Tags: figuratively
    Sense id: en-sharp_end-en-noun-MeT-KhmI Categories (other): English terms with collocations
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see sharp, end.
    Sense id: en-sharp_end-en-noun-Ql0wNlUH

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for sharp end meaning in English (3.1kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sharp ends",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "sharp end (plural sharp ends)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Nautical",
          "orig": "en:Nautical",
          "parents": [
            "Transport",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "52 40 7",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The bow of a ship."
      ],
      "id": "en-sharp_end-en-noun-EIOjVGtd",
      "links": [
        [
          "nautical",
          "nautical"
        ],
        [
          "bow",
          "bow"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, nautical) The bow of a ship."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "nautical",
        "transport"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with collocations",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with collocations",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "to be on/at the sharp end of something",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "to get the sharp end",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994 July 11, Kevin Murphy, “Hong Kong Notebook: Colony Regulators Pursuing ‘Big Fish’”, in International Herald Tribune, →ISSN",
          "text": "From individual stock exchange floor traders to prominent businessmen and establishment banks like Standard Chartered PLC, a growing list of Hong Kong identities are finding themselves on the sharp end of regulatory enforcement.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 May 21, Jason Wilson, “North Queensland is just at the sharp end of what’s happening across Australia”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "All of us have benefited from theft and environmental degradation, all of us have depended on new mines, new finds. North Queensland is just at the sharp end.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 May 8, Bill Spindle, “The World Has No Choice but to Care About India’s Heat Wave”, in The Atlantic",
          "text": "The heat wave has been severe enough to make international headlines, but it is far from the only impact of climate change I’ve witnessed in the first half of my six-month journey through the country to research and report on climate change and the energy transition India is undertaking in an attempt to mitigate it. India is at the sharp end of this predicament.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The most difficult or dangerous aspect of something."
      ],
      "id": "en-sharp_end-en-noun-MeT-KhmI",
      "links": [
        [
          "difficult",
          "difficult"
        ],
        [
          "dangerous",
          "dangerous"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) The most difficult or dangerous aspect of something."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1905 September, “A School Comment on Shake-Speare's Julius Cæsar”, in The Atlantic",
          "text": "Brutus did n't worry after he heard that his wife took a few hot coals. He called a servant and ran straight into his sword starting at the sharp end.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see sharp, end."
      ],
      "id": "en-sharp_end-en-noun-Ql0wNlUH",
      "links": [
        [
          "sharp",
          "sharp#English"
        ],
        [
          "end",
          "end#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sharp end"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sharp ends",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "sharp end (plural sharp ends)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English informal terms",
        "en:Nautical"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The bow of a ship."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "nautical",
          "nautical"
        ],
        [
          "bow",
          "bow"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, nautical) The bow of a ship."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "nautical",
        "transport"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with collocations",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "to be on/at the sharp end of something",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "to get the sharp end",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994 July 11, Kevin Murphy, “Hong Kong Notebook: Colony Regulators Pursuing ‘Big Fish’”, in International Herald Tribune, →ISSN",
          "text": "From individual stock exchange floor traders to prominent businessmen and establishment banks like Standard Chartered PLC, a growing list of Hong Kong identities are finding themselves on the sharp end of regulatory enforcement.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 May 21, Jason Wilson, “North Queensland is just at the sharp end of what’s happening across Australia”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "All of us have benefited from theft and environmental degradation, all of us have depended on new mines, new finds. North Queensland is just at the sharp end.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 May 8, Bill Spindle, “The World Has No Choice but to Care About India’s Heat Wave”, in The Atlantic",
          "text": "The heat wave has been severe enough to make international headlines, but it is far from the only impact of climate change I’ve witnessed in the first half of my six-month journey through the country to research and report on climate change and the energy transition India is undertaking in an attempt to mitigate it. India is at the sharp end of this predicament.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The most difficult or dangerous aspect of something."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "difficult",
          "difficult"
        ],
        [
          "dangerous",
          "dangerous"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) The most difficult or dangerous aspect of something."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1905 September, “A School Comment on Shake-Speare's Julius Cæsar”, in The Atlantic",
          "text": "Brutus did n't worry after he heard that his wife took a few hot coals. He called a servant and ran straight into his sword starting at the sharp end.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see sharp, end."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "sharp",
          "sharp#English"
        ],
        [
          "end",
          "end#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sharp end"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.