103 
S H A 
To make eager or hungry.—Such an assurance as will 
sharpen men’s desires, and quicken their endeavours for ob¬ 
taining a lesser good, ought to inspire men with more vigour 
in pursuit of what is greater. Tillotson.- —To make fierce 
or angry.—Mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me. Job. 
—To make biting, sarcastic or severe. 
My haughty soul would swell; 
Sharpen each word, and threaten in my eyes. Smith. 
To make less flat; more piercing to the ears.—-Enclosures 
not only preserve sound, but increase and sharpen it. Ba¬ 
con. —To make sour. 
To SHARPEN, v. n. To grow sharp.—Now she 
sharpens; well said, whetstone. Shakspearc. 
SHARPENHOE, a hamlet of England, in Bedfordshire; 
4 miles south-south-west of Silsoe. 
SHA'RPER, s. A tricking fellow; a petty thief; a rascal. 
— Sharpers, as pikes, prey upon theirown kind. L'Estrange. 
—He should retrench what he lost to sharpers, and spent 
upon puppet-plays, to apply“it to that use. Arbuthnot. 
SHARPERTON, a township of England, in Northum¬ 
berland ; 16| miles west-south-west of Alnwick. 
SHARPLES, a township of England, in Lancashire; 3 
miles north of Great Bolton. Population 1374. 
SHARPLING, the English name of the Gasterosteus. 
SHA'RPLY, adv. fjcepphe, Sax.] With keenuess; 
with good edge or point. Severely ; rigorously; roughly. 
—They are more sharply to be chastised and reformed than 
the rude Irish, which being very wild at the first, are now 
become more civil. Spenser. —Keenly; acutely; vigo¬ 
rously.—'The mind and memory are more sharply exercised 
in comprehending another man’s things than our own. 
B. Jonson. —Afflictively; painfully.—At the arrival of the 
English ambassadors, the soldiers were sharply assailed with 
wants. Hay-ward.— With quickness.—You contract your 
eye when you would see sharply; and erect your ear when 
you would hear attentively. Bacon. —Judiciously; acutely; 
wittily. 
SHARPNESS, s. [pceappnej-pt. Sax.] Keenness of 
edge or point.—Palladius neither suffering us nor himself to 
take in hand the party till the afternoon ; when we were to 
fight in troops, not differing otherwise from earnest, but 
that the sharpness of the weapons was taken away. Sidney. 
—Not obtuseness.-—Force consistelh in the roundings and 
raisings of the work, according as the limbs do more or less 
require it; so as the beholder shall spy no sharpness in the 
bordering lines. Wotton. —Sourness without austereness. 
Severity of language; satirical sarcasm. 
There’s gold for thee. 
Thou'must not take my former sharpness ill, 
I will employ thee back again. Shakspeare. 
Painfulness; afflictiveness. 
At this time 
We sweat and bleed; the friend hath lost his friend; 
And the best quarrels in the heat are curst 
By those that feel their sharpness. Shakspeare. 
Intellectual acuteness; ingenuity; wit.—Till Arianism 
had made it a matter of great sharpness and subtility of wit 
to be a sound believing Christian, men were not curious what 
syllables or particles of speech they used. Hooker .— 
Quickness of senses.—If the understanding or faculty of the 
soul be like unto bodily sight, not of equal sharpness in all; 
what can be more convenient than that, even as the dark- 
sighted man is directed by the clear about things visible, so 
likewise in matters of deeper discourse the wise in heart doth 
shew the simple where his way lieth. Hooker. 
SHARPS, an island of the United States, in Dorchester 
county, Maryland, in the Chesapeak. 
SHARP-SET, adj. Hungry; ravenous. 
The seely dove 
Two sharp-set hawks do her on each side hem. 
And she knows not which way to fly from them. Brown . 
S H A 
Eager; vehemently desirous.—Basilius forced her to stay, 
tho’ with much ado, she being sharp-set upon the fulfilling 
of a shrewd office, in overlooking Philoclea. Sidney. 
SHARP-SIGHTED, adj. Having quick sight. 
If she were the body’s quality. 
Then would she be with it sick, maim’d, and blind; 
But we perceive where these privations be. 
An healthy, perfect, and sharp-sighted mind. Davies. 
SHARP-VISAGED, adj. Having a sharp countenance. 
-—The Welsh that inhabit the mountains are commonly 
sharp-visaged. Hale. 
SHARP-WITTED, adj. Having an acute mind.—I 
have known a number of dull-sighted, very sharp-witted 
men. Wotton. 
SHARPSBURG, a post township of the United States, in 
Washington county, Maryland, about 2 miles from the Po¬ 
tomac. Population 1500. 
SHARPTOWN, a post township of the United States, in 
Salem county. New Jersey. 
SHARROW, a township of England, West Riding of 
Yorkshire; 1| mile east-by-north of Rippon. 
SHARUM, a village of Hadramaut, in Arabia; 15 miles 
south-west of Keschim. 
SHASH. See Sash. 
SHASSAIR, a village of the Bled-el-Jereede, bordering 
on the south-western extremity of the territory of Algiers; 7 
miles north-west of Fighig. 
SHASTAH, Sh.aster, or Sastra, which latter is said 
to be the correct spelling and pronunciation, the name of 
a sacred book, in high estimation among the idolaters of 
Hindoostan, containing all the dogmas of the religion o f 
the Bramins, and all the ceremonies of their worship, an& 
serving as a commentary on the Vedam.—The Banians 
deliver, that this booke called by them the shaster, or the 
booke of their written word, consisted of these three tracts. 
The first whereof contained their moral law:—the second 
unrolled their ceremonial lawthe third distinguished them 
into certain casts or tribes, &c. Lord. 
SHASUMAN, a village of Mazanderan, in Persia; 30 
miles east of Astrabad. 
SHAT-EL-FRAATE, a name given by the Arabs to the 
Euphrates. 
SHAT-KRATU, in Mythology, one of the names of the 
Hindoo Indra, regent of the firmament. It means the hun¬ 
dred sacrifices; that is, he to whom a hundred sacrifices are 
offered; or rather, perhaps, he who has offered them. 
SHAT-UL-ARAB, a large river, or rather canal, formed 
by the united streams of the Euphrates and Tigris, before 
entering the Persian gulf. It forms a most noble stream, 
and is navigable as far as Bassora, 70 miles from its mouth, 
for vessels of 500 tons burden. In all this space it is bor¬ 
dered by large plantations of date trees. It has been gener¬ 
ally supposed that this river entered the Persian gulf by se¬ 
veral mouths; but Mr. Kinneir seems to have ascertained, 
that it enters by one channel only, and that the other estu¬ 
aries are formed by branches of the river Karoon. 
SHATNUF, a village of Lower Egypt, on the right bank 
of the Nile; 9 miles north of Cairo. 
To SHATTER, v. a. [pcacepan, Sax.; schctteren, 
Teut.] To break at once into many pieces ; to break so as 
to scatter the parts. 
He rais’d a sigh so piteous and profound. 
That it did seem to shatter all his bulk. 
And rend his being. Shakspearc. 
Black from the stroke above, the smouldering pine. 
Stands as a shatter'd trunk. Thomson. 
To dissipate; to make incapable of close and continued 
attention.—A man of a loose, volatile, and shattered 
humour, thinks only by fits and starts. Norris. 
To SHATTER, v. n. To be broken, or to fall, by any 
force applied, into fragments.—Of bodies some are fragil; 
and 
