"sharpen up" meaning in English

See sharpen up in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: sharpens up [present, singular, third-person], sharpening up [participle, present], sharpened up [participle, past], sharpened up [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} sharpen up (third-person singular simple present sharpens up, present participle sharpening up, simple past and past participle sharpened up)
  1. (intransitive) To become sharp (in all senses). Tags: intransitive Synonyms: sharpen
    Sense id: en-sharpen_up-en-verb-es9hwKaG Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs formed with "up", Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 50 50 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs formed with "up": 50 50 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 50 50 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 50 50
  2. (transitive) To make sharp (in all senses). Tags: transitive Synonyms: sharpen
    Sense id: en-sharpen_up-en-verb-N9EJIO9r Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs formed with "up", Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 50 50 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs formed with "up": 50 50 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 50 50 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 50 50

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sharpens up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sharpening up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sharpened up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sharpened up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "sharpen up (third-person singular simple present sharpens up, present participle sharpening up, simple past and past participle sharpened up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs formed with \"up\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To become sharp (in all senses)."
      ],
      "id": "en-sharpen_up-en-verb-es9hwKaG",
      "links": [
        [
          "sharp",
          "sharp"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive) To become sharp (in all senses)."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "sharpen"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs formed with \"up\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To make sharp (in all senses)."
      ],
      "id": "en-sharpen_up-en-verb-N9EJIO9r",
      "links": [
        [
          "sharp",
          "sharp"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To make sharp (in all senses)."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "sharpen"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sharpen up"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English phrasal verbs",
    "English phrasal verbs formed with \"up\"",
    "English verbs",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sharpens up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sharpening up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sharpened up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sharpened up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "sharpen up (third-person singular simple present sharpens up, present participle sharpening up, simple past and past participle sharpened up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English intransitive verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To become sharp (in all senses)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "sharp",
          "sharp"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive) To become sharp (in all senses)."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "sharpen"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English transitive verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To make sharp (in all senses)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "sharp",
          "sharp"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To make sharp (in all senses)."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "sharpen"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sharpen up"
}

Download raw JSONL data for sharpen up meaning in English (1.3kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (74c5344 and fb63907). 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.