It is 16–17 cm long, with upperparts heavily marked with buff and rufous streaks, yellow underparts, and white outertail feathers in flight.

The common name and Latin binomial name commemorate the British zoologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe.

Sharpe's longclaw was described by the English ornithologist Frederick John Jackson in 1904 from specimens collected in the Mau Plateau area of Kenya.

Both the common name and the specific epithet honour the English ornithologist and museum curator Richard Bowdler Sharpe.

[3] The natural habitat of the species is open treeless grassland with short and often tussocky grasses.