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.
But then the latter's skillful knack of snaffling wickets came to the fore as he bagged two of Australia's dogged top order.
From BBC
In a nation of noisy confrontationalists—the skillful soft touch replaced by the swing of a folding chair—reason is routinely drowned out by the loudest voices in the room.
“He emphasized materials in a very skillful way. His lighting creates spatial depth. You get a different idea of what the architecture consists of.”
From Los Angeles Times
With a few clucks and some skillful handling of the reins, he urged the horse to pull their carriage sideways, blocking the way.
From Literature
But McKenzie, the son of Southland dairy farmers, has been resilient, selfless and, as ever, highly skillful.
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.
