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Glite Dictionary
🕴️ To appear stylish 🏃 To move quickly
to look sharp

to look sharp

6 5.3
To move quickly and be ready
  • phrasal verb
  • Informal
translation icon : darse prisa
  • Mr. Prater says you know your business, so look sharp.
  • gotta look sharp

Examples

  • Come on, look sharp, we need to leave in five minutes!

  • Hey, Sam, you better look sharp.

    In the Heat of the Night (1967)

  • Tell them to look sharp.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • Come on, look sharp.

    It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

  • But you're going to have to look sharp now that you're representing Detroit.

    Goalie (2019)

  • Gasping from their sudden waking, they gripped their muskets as hard as they could and shouted to each other from post to post: "Hey, you there - look sharp!"

    Fiction book (1999)

  • You need to look sharp if you want to impress the boss.

  • Everyone should look sharp for the presentation this afternoon.

Synonyms

to hurry
vsto look sharp
∞ 1.0

To move or act quickly because there is little time

is about rapid action with alertness rather than time pressure
to rush
vsto look sharp
548 1.0

To move or act quickly because a situation needs it

focuses on speed together with alert attention rather than force
to festinate
vsto look sharp
  • Archaic
9.9

To move or act quickly because you are in a hurry

is a short phrase that tells someone to act quickly and alertly

Antonyms

to linger
207 3.7

To stay in a place longer than expected because you do not want to leave

to dawdle
17 5.0

Move or act slowly and waste time, causing delay

How Fast

sprint
55 2.1
to rush
548 1.0
to look sharp
  • Informal
6 5.3
to hurry
∞ 1.0
to slow down
687 1.4

Surface Forms

look sharp infinitive
looked sharp past
looked sharp past participle
looking sharp present participle
looks sharp third person singular

Morphology

look + sharp

The meaning 'to appear stylish' is partly compositional: 'look' = to appear and 'sharp' can extend to 'smart/neat in appearance', so the phrase follows a predictable pattern. However, 'sharp' has multiple senses (commonly 'intelligent' at lower levels) and the fashion-related sense is a metaphorical extension that a B1 learner who only knows the cognitive sense may not infer, so full predictability is lacking.

Etymology

Look sharp may come from an older use of sharp meaning quick and alert. Think of a sharp knife or a person with sharp eyes who reacts fast, so to 'look sharp' came to mean 'act quickly' or be ready.