skillful
AmericanRelated Words
Skillful, skilled, expert refer to readiness and adroitness in an occupation, craft, or art. Skillful suggests especially adroitness and dexterity: a skillful watchmaker. Skilled implies having had long experience and thus having acquired a high degree of proficiency: not an amateur but a skilled worker. Expert means having the highest degree of proficiency; it may mean much the same as skillful or skilled, or both: expert workmanship. See also dexterous.
Other Word Forms
- quasi-skillful adjective
- quasi-skillfully adverb
- skillfully adverb
- skillfulness noun
Etymology
Origin of skillful
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.
In Renaissance England, skillful surgeons and herb-dispensing healers competed with charlatan doctors.
In this roiling atmosphere, skillful politicians such as Lincoln churned turnout.
A priest, noticing Pratt’s skillful doodling, bought him art supplies and showed him a collection of work by the Kiowa Five, a renowned group of early 20th-century painters who’d attended the school.
“It’s from my latest vocabulary lesson. It means shrewd or skillful, though you might be confusing it with the herb used for easing sore teeth and gums.”
From Literature
At his best, he is undoubtedly one of England's most skillful seamers but his fitness and reliability remains a concern.
From BBC
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.
