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

to look sharp

11 5.7
To be well dressed and neat
  • phrasal verb
  • Informal
translation icon : verse elegante
  • Well, you're looking sharp.
  • Hey, you're looking sharp
  • Looking sharp, man

Dang boy, you're looking sharp today.

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Examples

Synonyms

to look like a million dollars
vsto look sharp
  • Informal
2 6.7

Seem very attractive and stylish

show stylishness in a normal tasteful way rather than extreme
to cut a dash
vsto look sharp
  • Informal
7.2

To attract attention by looking smart and stylish

focus on neat or fashionable look without aiming to shock

Antonyms

shabby
33 2.5

Worn and in poor condition because of long use or little care

to look unkempt
1 4.5

To seem messy because your clothes or hair are not neat

How Stylish

glam
  • Informal
8 7.2
stylish
85 2.0
smart
127 2.4
to look sharp
  • Informal
11 5.7
neat
144 1.0
plain
50 2.5
shabby
33 2.5

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 meaning to appear stylish comes from calling neat clothes sharp because they have clean lines like a knife's edge. That's why look sharp now means 'appear stylish' or well dressed.