dextrous
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Explanation
If you're dextrous, you're graceful and skilled. A dextrous magician can wave her hands around and appear to pull a rabbit out of thin air. When you're dextrous, you have a physical skill — you could be a dextrous football player or a dextrous bass guitarist. You can also describe someone as dextrous who's a quick or clever thinker: "Her jokes are hilarious because she's really verbally dextrous." You can also spell this word as dexterous, and both versions have a Latin root, dexter, "skillful."
Vocabulary lists containing dextrous
A Man Called Ove
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Paradise Lost
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Dextrous of hand, she struck her lute's few strings; Ignobly perfect, barrenly content.
From The Poems of William Watson by Watson, William
Dextrous in the management of a horse, 289.
From An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa by Jackson, James Grey
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
