Caravaggio’s The Cardsharps, c. 1595. (The title is a modern one.) Oil on canvas painting depicting men in late sixteenth-century dress cheating at a game of primero, a precursor of poker. On the left is the dupe, unaware that behind him the older card sharp is signaling his accomplice with a hand, the glove having had the fingertips cut out in order to better feel marked cards. At right, the young card sharp reaches behind his back to pull out a card hidden in his breeches
6 November 2023
A card sharp or card shark is a person skilled at playing cards, with a strong connotation of being one who cheats. Pedants will often claim that since card sharp is the older of the two, that is the correct and proper term to use. But while the phrase card sharp is recorded several decades before card shark, that is not the end of the story, as both sharp and shark, in the sense of a cheat or rogue, are much older and of similar vintage, with shark nosing out sharp in the written record. And regardless of the above, both card sharp and card shark are in widespread use with card shark being more than twice as common. So one cannot by any stretch consider card shark to be an incorrect usage.
Shark, the name of the predatory fish, appears in the mid fifteenth century and by the end of the sixteenth century is being applied to predatory humans. This usage comes first as the verb to shark, meaning to prey upon another. The verb appears in Sir Thomas More, an Elizabethan play from c.1592 with later revisions. In the past mistakenly attributed to Shakespeare, the play is the product of a collaborative effort. The manuscript is composed by six different hands, and attribution of authorship is contentious. It may, however, been originally composed by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle, and later, after 1600, revised by Thomas Heywood and Thomas Dekker. The fifth hand is that of a theater scribe who seems to have supervised the revision process but was apparently not a substantial contributor to original text. The sixth hand, contributing a single scene, has tenuously been identified as Shakespeare’s, but if it is his handwriting, it’s unclear whether the scene he contributed was to the original text or the revision. The passage with shark, which is not in the scene thought to be by Shakespeare, is as follows:
What had you gott? I’le tell you: you had taught
How insolence and strong hand shoold prevayle,
How ordere shoold be quelld; and by this patterne
Not on of you should lyve an aged man,
For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With sealf same hand, sealf reasons, and sealf right,
Woold shark on you, and men lyke ravenous fishes
Woold feed on on another.
The noun appears in another Elizabethan play, this one being Ben Jonson’s Every Man Out of His Humor, which was published in 1600. Sharke appears in the published version’s prefatory material, in Jonson’s description of the character named Shift:
SHIFT.
A Thredbare Sharke. One that neuer was Soldior, yet liues vpon lendings. His profession is skeldring and odling, his Banke Poules, and his Ware-house Pict-hatch. Takes vp single Testons vpon Oths till dooms day. Fals vnder Executions of three shillings, & enters into fiue groat Bonds. He way-layes the reports of seruices, and cons them without booke, damming himselfe be came new from them, when all the while hee was taking the diet in a bawdie house, or lay pawn’d in his chamber for rent and victuals. Hee is of that admirable and happie Memorie, that bee will salute one for an old acquaintance, that hee neuer saw in his life before. Hee vsurps vpon Cheats, Quarrels, & Robberies, which he neuer did, only to get him a name. His cheef exercises are taking the Whiffe, squiring a Cocatrice, and making priuie searches for Imparters.
We see shark’s synonym sharper by the end of the seventeenth century. This word is formed from the verb to sharp + -er (one who performs the action of a verb). The verb to sharp has two potential, and not mutually exclusive, origins. The verb literally means to make something, like a knife, keen or acute but was used metaphorically to mean to cheat or swindle. Alternatively, given that the fish were not commonly known in England at the time, it could come out of re-analysis or folk etymology of the verb to shark. Or both possibilities could apply, independent coinages that reinforced one another.
Sharper appears in the diary of historian Narcissus Lutrell, who wrote of events of 15 June 1681:
The 15th was a project sett on foot in Grayes Inn for the carrying on an addresse for thankes to his majestie for his late declaration; and was moved that day in the hall by some at dinner, and being (as is usuall) sent to the barr messe to be by them recommended to the bench, but was rejected both by bench and barr; but the other side seeing they could doe no good this way , they gott about forty togeather and went to the tavern, and there subscribed the said addresse in the name of the truely loyall gentlemen of Grayes Inn. The cheif sticklers for the said addresse were sir William Scroggs jun., Robert Fairebeard, capt. Stowe, capt. Ratcliffe, one Yalden, with others. to the number of 40 or thereabouts; many of them sharpers about town, with clerks not out of theire time, and young men newly come from the university. And some of these went the 17th to Windsor, and presented the said addresse to his majesty; who was pleased to give them his thanks, and conferr (as is said) knighthood on the said Mr. Fairebeard: this proves a mistake since.
Sharper also appears in a fable collected and recorded by Roger L’Estrange in 1692. The fable is especially of interest to the history of the word as it also includes a use of the verb to shark:
FAB. CCXLI.
A Boy and a Thief.A Thief came to a Boy, that was Blubbering by the Side of a Well, and Ask’d him what he cry’d for. Why, says he, the String's Broke here, and I've dropt a Silver Cup into the Well. The Fellow presently Strips, and down he goes to search for’t. After a while, he comes up again, with his Labour for his Pains, and the Roguy Boy, in the Mean time, was run away with his Cloaths.
The MORAL.
Some Thieves are Ripe for the Gallows sooner then Others.
REFLEXION.
IT must be a Diamond that Cuts a Diamond, and there is No Pleasanter Encounter then a Tryal of Skill betwixt a Couple of Sharpers to Over-reach one Another. The Boy’s beginning so Early, tells us that there are Cheats by a Natural Propensity of Inclination as well as by a Corruption of Manners. It was Nature that taught This Boy to Shark; not Discipline, or Experience. And so it was with Two Ladies that I have known (and Women of Plentiful Fortunes too) they could not for their Bloods keep themselves Honest of their Fingers, but would still be Nimming something or other for the very Love of Thieving. ’Tis an Unhappy Thing, that the Temperament of the Body should have such an Influence upon our Manners, according to the Instance of the Boy in This Fable: For the Morality, or Immorality of the Matter, is not the Whole of the Case.
The word appears several times in Colley Cibber’s 1697 play Woman’s Wit. The first is the adjective sharping, uttered by the character Major Rakish in reference to his son:
Where is this Rogue! This Villain! This sharping Dog?
And a few lines later the same character uses the verb to sharp in response to the idea that he give his son a more generous allowance:
Allowance! a Dog! has not Nature given him a strong Back? let him live by that; let him turn Beau, and live upon tick; let him lye with his Laundress, get in with his Semstress, help his Taylor to Custom, Dine with me, Bilk his Lodging,——and now and then sharp a Play in the side Box.
And then we have this exchange between father and son later in the play:
Ma[jor Rakish]. Ay!—That is give him all, and take the rest to my self! Why really if it were not for a little scandal, a Sharper is a very good Trade, I see.
Y[oung]. Ra[kish]. What's that you say, Sir? Dammee! A Sharper! I suppose you have a mind to tilt for it?
The father wins the subsequent fencing match, taking the money from his son.
We see that both shark and sharp were well established by the end of the seventeenth century. The phrases card sharp and card shark would have to wait, however, until the nineteenth century.
As mentioned above, card sharp is recorded first, in Henry Downes Miles’s 1840 novel Claude du Val:
While thus running on, the knavish card-sharp was slowly and with apparent fairness, cutting the pack, which was prepared by having every card but the honours of each suit cut at the ends, but in so slight a degree as not to shorten them enough to be detectible by an ordinary eye, though sufficiently to be felt by a fine and practiced finger, which could thus ensure a court-card, while the red cards of the pack (or deck of cards, as they were then commonly called,) were deprived of their proper size by a similar process of shaving off the sides, so as to make the turn-up either red or black at the will of the player.
And card sharper is found a year later in an advertisement for a Dublin magic show. From the Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser of 13 May 1841:
NEW THEATRE ROYAL, ABBEY-STREET.
INCREDIBLE INCREDIBILITIES.THIS NIGHT the GREAT WIZARD will Animate a Half-Crown, make it dance an Irish Jig, and tell a Lady’s Fortune—Burn all the Handkerchiefs in the Theatre, and restore them perfect—Change a Gentleman’s Hat into a Feather Bed—Card Sharpers exposed—Cheat Cheating Gamblers, and a Thousand Other Mysteries.
Doors open at Half-past Seven—Miracles commence at a Quarter-past Eight.
Private Boxes, 3s.; Boxes, 2s.; Pit 1s.; Gallery, 6d.; Half-price at a Quarter past Nine.
Carriages in attendance at Half past Ten.
Card shark isn’t recorded for some decades, but there is no reason to think it wasn’t in oral circulation much earlier. We see it in an article in Ohio’s Sandusky Daily Register of 7 September 1877. It is about events in Nevada and is reprinted from a Nevada newspaper, which I have been unable to find:
Captain Bob’s Poker Convention
From the Virginia (Nev.) Chronicle
Captain Bob, the Piute politician has called a big poker convention, to be held at American Flat to-day. The subject of this gathering of card-sharks is to definitely settle the relative values of some of the larger denominations of hands. Some years ago Bob learned the dip, spurs, and sinuosities of the game from a white man, and introduced it into the pastimes of his tribe in a manner advantageous to his private exchequer. He did not, so to speak, throw the game to them all at once, but doled out the fine points in judicious driblets. It took experience and money to learn the game of Bob. For instance, one day, with $18.50 in the pot one of the players revealed possession of four aces. A trifle like that did not abash the mental resources of Bob, for he coolly gathered in the pot on a pair of kings and two deuces. His antagonist was easily convinced by Bob’s argument that the two deuces were just equivalent to the four aces, having the same number of spots, while the kings gave the required preponderance. Some of the bucks accuse Bob of having a different poker rule for every change of the moon, and they have demanded a convocation of the tribe to deliberate upon it. Bob, by a diplomatic strike, is now first and foremost in the call for reform, and is louder than all the rest in the demand for a convention. Long Brown has received an invitation to be present, and Jim Orndorff will act as referee.
So the next time someone tells you that the proper term is card sharp and that card shark is an error, you will have the facts to refute them. (If you wish to do so, but you should probably let it pass. There’s no sense in arguing with such people.)
Sources:
Advertisement. The Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser (Dublin), 13 May 1841, 1/1. Newspapers.com.
“Captain Bob’s Poker Convention.” Sandusky Daily Register (Ohio), 7 September 1877, 2/4–5. NewspaperArchive.
Cibber, Colley. Woman’s Wit. London: John Sturton, 1697, 9. Early English Books Online.
Davies, Mark. Corpus of Global Web-Based English (GloWbE), accessed 1 October 2023.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, n.d., sharp, n.1., sharp, v., sharper, n.
Jonson, Ben. Every Man Out of His Humor. London: William Holme, 1600, sig. Av. Early English Books Online.
L’Estrange, Roger. “Fables of Anianus.” In Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists. London: R. Sare, et al., 1692, 209–10. Early English Books Online.
Luttrell, Narcissus. Diary (16 June 1681). In A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs, vol. 1 of 6. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1857, 99. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Miles, Henry Downes. Claude du Val. London: Thomas White, 1840, 129. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Munday, Anthony, et al.. Sir Thomas More (c.1592). Dyce, Alexander, ed. London: Shakespeare Society, 1844, 2.4, 27. London, British Library, Harley MS 7368. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2021, s.v. card sharp, n., card sharper, n.; 2020, card shark, n.; second edition, 1989, s.v. sharp, adj. & n., n.8., sharper, n.1.
Image credit: Caravaggio, c. 1595. Wikimedia Commons. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas. Fair use of a mechanical reproduction of a public domain work.