sharp vs slack

sharp

adj
  • Eager or keen in pursuit; impatient for gratification. 

  • Higher in pitch than required. 

  • Intelligent. 

  • Having an intense, acrid flavour. 

  • Offensive, critical, or acrimonious. 

  • Forming a small angle; especially, forming an angle of less than ninety degrees. 

  • Steep; precipitous; abrupt. 

  • Terminating in a point or edge, especially one that can cut easily; not obtuse or rounded. 

  • Illegal or dishonest. 

  • Higher than usual by one semitone (denoted by the symbol ♯ after the name of the note). 

  • Keenly or unduly attentive to one's own interests; shrewd. 

  • Tactical; risky. 

  • Composed of hard, angular grains; gritty. 

  • Said of as extreme a value as possible. 

  • Exact, precise, accurate; keen. 

  • Piercing; keen; severe; painful. 

  • Stylish or attractive. 

  • Sudden and intense. 

  • Observant; alert; acute. 

noun
  • A note that is sharp in a particular key. 

  • Something that is sharp. 

  • A dishonest person; a cheater. 

  • Fine particles of husk mixed with coarse particle of flour of cereals; middlings. 

  • A note that is played a semitone higher than usual; denoted by the name of the note that is followed by the symbol ♯. 

  • A sharp tool or weapon. 

  • A sharpie (member of Australian gangs of the 1960s and 1970s). 

  • The scale having a particular sharp note as its tonic. 

  • Part of a stream where the water runs very rapidly. 

  • A sewing needle with a very slender point, more pointed than a blunt or a between. 

  • The symbol ♯, placed after the name of a note in the key signature or before a note on the staff to indicate that the note is to be played a semitone higher. 

  • A hypodermic syringe. 

verb
  • To play tricks in bargaining; to act the sharper. 

  • To raise the pitch of a note half a step making a natural note a sharp. 

adv
  • To a point or edge; piercingly; eagerly; sharply. 

  • Exactly. 

  • In a higher pitch than is correct or desirable. 

slack

adj
  • Lacking diligence or care; not earnest or eager. 

  • Moderately warm. 

  • Vulgar; sexually explicit, especially in dancehall music. 

  • Not active or busy, successful, or violent. 

  • Excess; surplus to requirements. 

  • Lax; not tense; not firmly extended. 

  • Lax. 

  • Moderate in speed. 

  • Weak; not holding fast. 

verb
  • To slacken. 

  • To lose cohesion or solidity by a chemical combination with water; to slake. 

adv
  • Slackly. 

noun
  • Unconditional listening attention given by client to patient. 

  • A temporary speed restriction where track maintenance or engineering work is being carried out at a particular place. 

  • A tidal marsh or shallow that periodically fills and drains. 

  • The part of anything that hangs loose, having no strain upon it. 

  • Small coal; coal dust. 

  • A valley, or small, shallow dell. 

How often have the words sharp and slack occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )