sharper
noun
Simple meaning
A professional card player who makes a living by cheating at card games.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
shahrperSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈʃɑɹpɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A professional card player who makes a living by cheating at card games
dated
A swindler; a cheat; a professional gambler who makes his living by cheating.
A surname.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A professional card player who makes a living by cheating at card games
Used this way, sharper is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Nearby words
- sharpie , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Tap the highlighted word to open its own entry.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Keenly and painfully felt.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A quick and penetrating intelligence.
In an aggressive manner.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A professional card player who makes a living by cheating at card games.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.