sharp end

plural sharp ends

1. informalnauticalThe bow of a ship.
2. figurativelyThe most difficult or dangerous aspect of something.

   to get the sharp end

   4 more examples

   to be on/at the sharp end of something

   From individual stock exchange floor traders to prominent businessmen and establishment banks like Standard Chartered PLC, a growing list of Hong Kong identities are finding themselves on the sharp end of regulatory enforcement.

   1994 July 11, Kevin Murphy, “Hong Kong Notebook: Colony Regulators Pursuing ‘Big Fish’”, in International Herald Tribune, →ISSN

   All of us have benefited from theft and environmental degradation, all of us have depended on new mines, new finds. North Queensland is just at the sharp end.

   2019 May 21, Jason Wilson, “North Queensland is just at the sharp end of what’s happening across Australia”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   The heat wave has been severe enough to make international headlines, but it is far from the only impact of climate change I’ve witnessed in the first half of my six-month journey through the country to research and report on climate change and the energy transition India is undertaking in an attempt to mitigate it. India is at the sharp end of this predicament.

   2022 May 8, Bill Spindle, “The World Has No Choice but to Care About India’s Heat Wave”, in The Atlantic

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see sharp, end.

   Brutus did n't^([sic]) worry after he heard that his wife took a few hot coals. He called a servant and ran straight into his sword starting at the sharp end.

   1905 September, “A School Comment on Shake-Speare's Julius Cæsar”, in The Atlantic