Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(also sharping lay) swindling and cheating in its various forms.

1669		R. L’Estrange Fables of Aesop XXXIV 33: The whole Course of your Scandalous Life is only Cheating and Sharping.
c.1685		‘Destruction of Plain Dealing’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) I 435: We find that all sherking and sharping is made / By Burmigem Coiners an absolute trade.
1691		Dryden King Arthur in Works (1899) Prologue line 38: Among the rest there are a sharping set That pray for us, and yet against us bet .
1701		N. Ward ‘A Walk to Islington’ Writings (1704) 70: Thus wanders asham’d, till by Sharping and Tricking, / Or slinging Levant with the hazard of Kicking.
1714		T. Lucas Lives of the Gamesters (1930) 231: Noblemen, ought to be above knowing what biting or sharping is.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy II 10: Step to Will’s Coffee House you’ll find some Wits / Who live upon Sharping and Cheating.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 97: I was [...] much better skilled in Sharping than my Age seemed to promise.
1748		Smollett Roderick Random (1979) 359: Her brother, who had [...] spoke of me as an Irish fortune-hunter, without birth or estate to recommend me; who supported myself in the appearance of a gentleman by sharping, and other infamous practices.
1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 9: We went into the North of England to Fairs, Horse Races, and Cock Matches, on the sharping Lay.
1800		Sporting Mag. Feb. XV 264/1: A new mode of sharping has been lately put in practice in the Borough.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 264: sharping swindling and cheating in all their various forms, including the arts of fraud at play.
1842		‘The Man About Town’ in Nobby Songster 24: I did a little sharping, when e’er I caught a flat.
1859		Reynolds’s Newspaper 24 July 1/2: Skittle Sharping — At Clerkenwell Police-court [...] a notorious skittle-sharper [...] was placed at the bar.
1868		Sportsman 23 May 4/1: Notes on News [...] [A] retired tradesmen named Kay, who came up on remand [...] on a charge of sharping in a railway carriage.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) I 69: My little bit of ‘sharping’ at Chichester was connected with chickens.
1905		A. Binstead Mop Fair 76: Mightily close to sharping, don’t you think?