sharpener

plural sharpeners

1. A device for making things sharp.

   There was a pencil sharpener at the front of the classroom.

2. figurativelyThat which makes something sharp.

   “Sir,” said the shepherd, “poverty is a great sharpener of the wits. […]

   1795, Hannah More, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain

   1 more example

   The snuff-box, knife, and chicken-bones were again in requisition, and a pen was successfully formed. The ink, or at least its substitute, was rather more difficult, but necessity is always a sharpener of intellect, and even this was accomplished.

   1872, Chambers's miscellany of instructive & entertaining tracts

3. informalAn alcoholic drink taken at the start of the day, or just before a meal.

   The summery G&T somehow loses its clink-clink-fizz perfection as an after-work sharpener and just seems to rub our noses in the dank gloom ahead.

   2015 October 22, Kate Hawkings, “Drink: make mine a gin, but hold the tonic”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   1 more example

   And the new daycap has little in common with the stiff gin of the old-fashioned sharpener. Instead, it revolves around “spritz culture, mood-based cocktails, and small serves that tap into the sweet treat economy”.

   2026 February 23, “Rise of the ‘daycap’: is this the end of late-night drinking?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN