The word sharp or acronym SHARP has several uses:

Look up sharp in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• A pointed or edged item. This meaning is often used in regards to the disposal of Medical equipment.
• Sharp is a musical notation sign.
• Any of a number of programming languages, including:
  • A# programming language
  • C# programming language
  • F# programming language
  • J# programming language
  • S# programming language
• Sharp Corporation
• Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP)
• Super High Altitude Research Project (SHARP), a 1990s project to develop a high-velocity gun
• Sharp, a crater on the moon
• S#arp, a K-pop group
• Sharp (set theory)
• sharpness (visual), image sharpness
• sharpness (audio), audio sharpness

People named Sharp

You may be looking for someone whose family name is Sharpe.

Sharp is cognate to the German scharf. It is also akin to words which have the sense of scraping, e.g. Latin scrobis 'ditch', Russian skresti 'to scrape'.

• Abraham Sharp (1651-1742), English schoolmaster, mathematician and astronomer
• Alan Sharp (1934- ) Scottish author
• Bartholomew Sharp
• Billy Sharp
• Bob Sharp (born 1942), Brazilian racer
• Bree Sharp, U.S. singer and songwriter
• Brian Sharp, computer game programmer
• Cecil Sharp (1859-1924), English music teacher and traditional English dance expert
• Clifford Sharp
• Dave Sharp
• David Sharp (died 2006), Everest mountain climber
• David Sharp (entomologist)
• Dee Dee Sharp (born 1945), U.S. rhythm and blues singer
• Dennis Sharp
• Derrick Sharp
• Don Sharp
• Dudley C. Sharp
• Elliott Sharp (born 1951), U.S. avant-garde musician
• Frank Sharp, U.S. land developer (Sharpstown, Houston)
• Frank Sharp (RNZAF)
• Gabriela Sharp
• Garrett Sharp (born 1985), U.S. treatise writer, philosopher
• Gavin Sharp
• Gene Sharp (born 1928), political scientist
• Graeme Sharp (born 1960), Scottish footballer
• Granville Sharp (1735-1813), English abolitionist
• Hap Sharp, U.S. Formula One driver
• Harry Sharp
• Isadore Sharp (born 1931), Canadian businessman
• Jack Sharp
• James Sharp (1613-1679), Scottish clergyman
• James E. Sharp (born 1940), U.S. lawyer
• James Lyall Sharp
• James Sharp (footballer)
• John Sharp (1643-1714), Archbishop of York
• Jon Sharp
• Joseph Henry Sharp, artist (Taos Art Colony)
• K. B. Sharp
• Kevin Sharp, U.S. heavy metal singer
• Kevin Sharp (country music singer)
• Kevin Sharp (footballer)
• Lesley Sharp
• Liam Sharp
• Linda K. Sharp, U.S. women's basketball coach
• Lindsay Sharp
• Maia Sharp, country music singer and songwriter
• Margaret Sharp, Baroness Sharp of Guildford (born 1938), member of the British House of Lords
• Margery Sharp (1905-1991), English writer
• Martha Sharp
• Martin Sharp (born 1944), Australian cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker
• Martin Sharp (journalist)
• Matt Sharp (born 1969), U.S. rock bassist
• Minnie Bell Sharp (1865-1937), pianist and singer
• Mitchell Sharp (1911-2004), Canadian politician
• Pat Sharp (born 1961), British television presenter
• Patrick Sharp
• Philip Sharp
• Phillip Allen Sharp (born 1944), U.S. geneticist and molecular biologist
• Phineas Sharp
• Rebecca Sharp (1923-1990) Award Winning American Artist, Murdered
• Rhod Sharp
• Richard Sharp (born 1938), English rugby player
• Rodney Sharp
• Ronald Sharp (born 1929), Australian organ builder
• Ryan Sharp (born 1979), British race car driver
• Samuel Sharp
• Scott Sharp
• Solomon P. Sharp (1787-1825), U.S. politician
• Susie Sharp
• Sylver Logan Sharp
• Verity Sharp
• Walter Benona Sharp
• William Sharp (1749-1824) the English engraver
• William Sharp (1855-1905) the Scottish author and poet, pseudonym Fiona MacLeod
• Willoughby Sharp
• Zerna Sharp (1889-1981), U.S. teacher

Fictional Sharps

• Becky Sharp, the main character in Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair (also the name of a Swedish rock band)
• Phineas Sharp, a Disney character

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

A sharper is an older term, common since the seventeenth-century, for thieves who use trickery to part an owner with his or her money possessions. Sharpers vary from what we now call con-men by virtue of the simplicity of their cons, which often were impromptu, rather than carefully orchestrated, though those certainly happened as well. The 1737 Dictionary of Thieving Slang defines a sharper as "A Cheat, One who lives by his wits." In the nineteenth-century, and into today, the term is more closely associated with gambling.

The Eighteenth-Century Sharper and Public Imagination

Sharpers were romantic figures in the eighteenth-century, valued as imaginative figures for their perceived social independence and ability to create new social networks of gangs. The appeal of an independent society, operating outside the law, has been imaginative evocative for centuries, but in eighteenth-century London philosophical thought, influenced by Thomas Hobbes and Rousseau's new formulations of social contract, the romanticization of thievery reached new levels. John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and Henry Fielding's novel Jonathan Wild are only two examples of sharpers as heroes, in these cases, to provide satirical ammunition against the British Prime Minister Horace Walpole.

Outside sources

• See Rick Norton's eighteenth-century newspaper reports of sharpers.
• Job Monkey has a detailed article on nineteenth-century sharpers and contemporary legal reactions.

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