Sharpie

Origin

From sharp + -ie("diminutive suffix").

Alternative forms

• (member of an Australian youth gang) sharp

Noun

1. An alert person.
2. (US, regional) A knowledgeable fisherman.
• 1976 December, Ken Schultz, Field & Stream Fishing Contest Winners: Nothing but the Best, Field & Stream, %22sharpies%22+-intitle:%22%22+-inauthor:%22%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZugKT4zeIcmaiQfmo5meCQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22sharpie%22|%22sharpies%22%20-intitle%3A%22%22%20-inauthor%3A%22%22&f=false page 78,Eventually DeBlasio became a sharpie.In New York and New Jersey coastal fishing parlance a “sharpie” is one who fishes seven days a week all summer long, selling his fish to the market to make a living. Sharpies supposedly have fishing down to a science, to such a degree that they only go to particular places, at particular times, using particular fishing methods, and come back with a boatload of fish while everyone else wonders in amazement.
3. (US) A swindler.
• 1953, Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, Penguin 2010, p. 102:Three booths down a couple of sharpies were selling each other pieces of Twentieth Century Fox, using double arm gestures instead of money.
4. (US) A long, narrow fishing boat used in shallow waters.
• 1995, Rodney Barfield, Seasoned by Salt: A Historical Album of the Outer Banks, %22sharpies%22+-intitle:%22%22+-inauthor:%22%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UtUKT4iuIY7ymAWP7JmuAg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22sharpie%22|%22sharpies%22%20-intitle%3A%22%22%20-inauthor%3A%22%22&f=false page 168,He brought this pair of sharpies, the Lucia and the Ella, to Beaufort by schooner and began to use them for fishing, oyster dredging, and even as a passenger ferry and party boat.The sharpie is a flat-bottomed, shallow-draft vesel of moderate size, comparable to a sloop or schooner.
• 2006, Greg Rössel, The Boatbuilder's Apprentice, %22sharpies%22+-intitle:%22%22+-inauthor:%22%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GJkKT4fNIeX7mAX1jOn0DA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22sharpie%22|%22sharpies%22%20-intitle%3A%22%22%20-inauthor%3A%22%22&f=false page 293,On the other end of the spectrum are the flat-bottomed sharpies. The earliest sharpies were developed in the mid-nineteenth century as the ideal boats for the oyster fishery of the Connecticut shore.
5. (birdwatching) Abbreviation of sharp-shinned hawk
• 2005, Bill Thompson, Eirik A. T. Blom, Jeffrey A. Gordon, Identify Yourself: The 50 Most Common Birding Identification Challenges, %22sharpies%22+-intitle:%22%22+-inauthor:%22%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZccKT_SsJubImQXSn4gF&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22sharpie%22|%22sharpies%22%20-intitle%3A%22%22%20-inauthor%3A%22%22&f=false page 93,It is harder to gauge the shorter tail of sharpies, but on sitting birds the tail shape is a more useful character than it is on flying birds. Sharpies of all ages and sexes almost always show a notched tail when they are sitting.
• 2010, Era S. VanDenburg, The Natural World of Ivy Lane, %22sharpies%22+-intitle:%22%22+-inauthor:%22%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=i-sKT92BObHimAWjluy1AQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22sharpie%22|%22sharpies%22%20-intitle%3A%22%22%20-inauthor%3A%22%22&f=false page 48,My mother had lost a considerable number of spring chicks to a raiding sharpie.
6. (Australia) A member of a violent, fashionably dressed youth gang of the 1960s and 1970s.
• 2006, Iain McIntyre, Tomorrow Is Today: Australia in the Psychedelic Era, 1966-1970, %22sharpies%22+-intitle:%22%22+-inauthor:%22%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZccKT_SsJubImQXSn4gF&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22sharpie%22|%22sharpies%22%20-intitle%3A%22%22%20-inauthor%3A%22%22&f=false page 47,The Circle Ballroom in High Street Preston was another popular sharpie hang-out....Sharpies were all deep drinkers.
7. A felt-tipped marker pen.

Anagrams

• harpies, shar-pei, spheria