# sharpening

Pronunciation: US say "SHAR-puhn-ing" /ˈʃɑɹpənɪŋ/; UK say "SHAH-puhn-ing" /ˈʃɑːpənɪŋ/

## Verb

1. Present participle and gerund of sharpen. — present participle and gerund of sharpen
   - Simple: Present participle and gerund of sharpen. Use it after "is" or "are," or to talk about doing the action.
   - _He was sharpening an ax behind the cabin when the storm hit._
   - _With every new poll, the contest between the two candidates is sharpening._

## Noun

2. The act of making something sharp or sharper.
   - Simple: Making something sharp, or sharper than it was before.
   - _Regular sharpening keeps a chisel safe and easy to control._
   - _The editor's sharpenings of the argument made the essay far more persuasive._
3. The debris that is left over when a pencil is sharpened.
   - Simple: The small bits that come off a pencil when you sharpen it.
   - _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._

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/sharpening (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).