Card-sharp
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Alternative form of cardsharp. alt-of, alternative
"While thus running on, the knavish card-sharp was slowly, and with apparent fairness, cutting the pack, which was prepared by having every card but the honours of each suit cut at the ends, in so slight a degree, however, as not to shorten them enough to be detectible by an ordinary eye, though sufficiently to be felt by a fine and practised finger, which could thus ensure a court-card, while the red cards of the pack (or deck of cards, as they were then commonly called) were deprived of their proper size by a similar process of shaving off the sides, so as to make the turn-up either red o black at will of the player."
Example
More examples"While thus running on, the knavish card-sharp was slowly, and with apparent fairness, cutting the pack, which was prepared by having every card but the honours of each suit cut at the ends, in so slight a degree, however, as not to shorten them enough to be detectible by an ordinary eye, though sufficiently to be felt by a fine and practised finger, which could thus ensure a court-card, while the red cards of the pack (or deck of cards, as they were then commonly called) were deprived of their proper size by a similar process of shaving off the sides, so as to make the turn-up either red o black at will of the player."
More for "card-sharp"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.