sharpening

Pluralsharpenings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of sharpen.

   He was sharpening an ax behind the cabin when the storm hit.

   With every new poll, the contest between the two candidates is sharpening.

   Note

   Like any -ing form, it makes the progressive after be and works as a gerund (sharpening a chisel takes care). Both frames of the verb survive in it: with an object, someone is sharpening a blade, a pencil or a skill; without one, a contest or a feeling is sharpening, which means it is growing more intense.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of making something sharp or sharper.

   Regular sharpening keeps a chisel safe and easy to control.

   The editor's sharpenings of the argument made the essay far more persuasive.

   Similarhoning, whetting

   Note

   In the plural the noun can turn figurative, each sharpening a separate touch that makes something more precise. Heinrich Wölfflin, in Drawings of Albrecht Dürer, finds "heightenings and sharpenings of the line" that give the drawn line a value of its own.

3. 3
   nouncountableplural

   The debris that is left over when a pencil is sharpened.

   Before the exam, the desks were littered with pencil sharpenings and eraser crumbs.

   The artist saves her colored-pencil sharpenings and glues them onto handmade cards.

   Similarshavings

   Note

   This meaning lives in the plural: sharpenings are the shavings a pencil leaves in the sharpener or on the desk, often named with pencil in front, as in pencil sharpenings. A single sharpening is read as the act, not its leftovers.

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