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 in the management of a horse, 289.
From An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa by Jackson, James Grey
Dextrous of hand, she struck her lute's few strings; Ignobly perfect, barrenly content.
From The Poems of William Watson by Watson, William
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.
