as in sharpened
having an edge thin enough to cut or pierce something
I'll need a well-whetted axe to split the wood
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Recent Examples of whetted
Literary Hub, 2 Jan. 2026
Exposure to the outside world, through her father's work, must have whetted MacLeod's appetite for travel, Crichton says.
—Lauren Frayer, NPR, 14 Sep. 2025
Verb
The sheer audacity of the recent Louvre heist has whetted us readers’ appetites for heist stories—space heists, all the better!
—Literary Hub, 2 Jan. 2026
Exposure to the outside world, through her father's work, must have whetted MacLeod's appetite for travel, Crichton says.
—Lauren Frayer, NPR, 14 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for whetted
Verb
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The commercial logic behind high-resolution restoration has sharpened considerably as streaming platforms have come to depend on catalogue depth.—
Naman Ramachandran,
Variety,
1 Apr. 2026
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The declassified materials have sharpened scrutiny of how the 2017 intelligence assessment document was produced in the final weeks of the Obama administration, when senior intelligence officials were shaping conclusions about Russian election interference.—
Kaelan Deese,
The Washington Examiner,
1 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
The first was a gentle bell curve; the second was a jagged line, with two sharp peaks—one on the left, the other on the right.—
Eyal Press,
New Yorker,
30 Mar. 2026
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The 5-foot-9 rookie infielder looks like a special hitter with sharp instincts on the basepaths.—
Tom Krasovic,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
29 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Whetted.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/whetted. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.
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