Of an EDO, this is the count of steps it maps the apotome to; in other words, it is the size of its sharp.

For example, 12-EDO maps the apotome to one step; it has a sharpness of 1. We could say it is a sharp-1 EDO. On the other hand, 17-EDO maps the apotome to two steps, so it is a sharp-2 EDO.

See also

n-EDO Retuner plugin for Musescore 3.4+: uses sharpness to categorize EDOs for retuning Sagittal notation's Periodic Table of EDOs: arranges EDOs by their sharpness