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The quality or state of being pungent or piercing; keenness; sharpness; piquancy; as, the pungency of ammonia. "The pungency of menaces." Hammond.

The nankeen bird.

Fresh; bracing; sharp; keen. The air is quick there, And it pierces and sharpens the stomach. Shak.

in the womb. The heart is the first part that quickens, and the last that dies. Ray. And keener lightnings quicken in her eye. Pope. When the pale and bloodless east began To quicken to the sun. Tennyson.

Acuteness of perception; keen sensibility. Would not quickness of sensation be an inconvenience to an animal that must lie still Locke

Furnished with, or carrying, a quiver. "Like a quivered nymph with arrows keen." Milton.

A keen-edged knife of peculiar shape, used in shaving the hair from the face or the head. "Take thee a barber's rasor." Ezek. v. 1.

used in reaping; a sickle; -- in a specific sense, distinguished from a sickle by a blade keen instead of serrated.

To beat to obtuseness; to deprive of keenness; to blunt; to turn back the point of, as a lance used for exercise. But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge. Shak.

The act of rivaling, or the state of being a rival; a competition. "Keen contention and eager rivalries." Jeffrey.

Of quick sense perceptions; keen-scented; skilled in following a trail. Sagacious of his quarry from so far. Milton.

The quality of being sagacious; quickness or acuteness of sense perceptions; keenness of discernment or penetration with soundness of judgment; shrewdness. Some [brutes] show that nice sagacity of smell. Cowper. Natural sagacity improved by generous education. V. Knox.

A keen, reproachful expression; a satirical remark uttered with some degree of scorn or contempt; a taunt; a gibe; a cutting jest. The sarcasms of those critics who imagine our art to be a matter of inspiration. Sir J. Reynolds.

A composition, generally poetical, holding up vice or folly to reprobation; a keen or severe exposure of what in public or private morals deserves rebuke; an invective poem; as, the Satires of Juvenal.

To make the object of satire; to attack with satire; to censure with keenness or severe sarcasm. It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues. Swift.

A small knife with a thin, keen blade, -- used by surgeons, and in dissecting.

Of quick or keen smell. The scentful osprey by the rock had fished. W. Browne.

g a very thin edge or fine point; of a nature to cut or pierce easily; not blunt or dull; keen. He dies upon my scimeter's sharp point. Shak.

Eager in appetite or desire of gratification; affected by keen hunger; ravenous; as, an eagle or a lion sharp-set. The town is sharp-set on new plays. Pope.

To give a keen edge or fine point to; to make sharper; as, to sharpen an ax, or the teeth of a saw.