skillful implies individual dexterity in execution or performance.
skillful drivers
expert implies extraordinary proficiency and often connotes knowledge as well as technical skill.
expert in the evaluation of wines
Examples of adept in a Sentence
AdjectiveMadison, Jefferson's lifelong friend, collaborator, and political ally, was quizzical and skeptical. His mind was less capacious and less elevated than Jefferson's, but more … original, and instinctively contrary. Less learned than Jefferson, his verbal skills inferior, he was almost pedantically alert to inner complications, and so, though less adept a politician, he was more consistent.—Bernard Bailyn, To Begin the World Anew, 2003Three small figurines carved of ivory from mammoth tusks have been found in a cave in southwestern Germany, providing stronger evidence that human ancestors were already adept at figurative art more than 30,000 years ago, an archaeologist is reporting today.—John Noble Wilford, New York Times, 18 Dec. 2003The Angels exploited center-fielder Bernie Williams's weak throwing arm in the division series against the Yankees and are adept at scampering from first to third on hits to the outfield.—Jack Curry, New York Times, 20 Oct. 2002Barnum was especially adept at pulling back one curtain after another, keeping the audience in a state of panting uncertainty, perpetually postponing the revelation of what was "really" going on.—Jackson Lears, New Republic, 12 Nov. 2001
He's adept in several languages.
he's an adept pitcher, and the team is lucky to have him NounOnce safely back in Paris, and having attained his majority, the poet squandered his inheritance with an adept's fervor …—Nicholas Delbanco, Harper's, September 2004They recruited computational chemists, software engineers, AI experts, and various other computer adepts, all of whom put their monster minds together to create an automated reasoning system that could inspect vast amounts of chemical data quickly and point the finger at potential new drug compounds.—Ed Regis, Wired, June 2000
even by the standards of Washington, he's an adept at political intrigue and power politics
Recent Examples on the Web
Adjective
Offensive line coach Chris Morgan has proved to be adept at putting together a makeshift line, but the Bears want to get out of the cycle of constant change and turnover.—Brad Biggs, Chicago Tribune, 18 Aug. 2024 Generally, HSPs are adept at seeing the big picture and attention to detail.—Bryan Robinson, Forbes, 17 Aug. 2024
Noun
The libero is usually a defensive specialist adept at passing.—Greg Rosenstein, NBC News, 30 July 2024 Still though, the dietary differences alone aren’t sufficient to explain what makes snakes so evolutionary adept.—Popular Science, 22 Feb. 2024 See all Example Sentences for adept
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'adept.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
borrowed from New Latin adeptus "one who has attained a high degree of proficiency (as in alchemy or hermetic philosophy)," going back to Latin, "having attained," past participle of adipīscī "to arrive at, attain," from ad-ad- + apīscī "to seize hold of, obtain," perhaps an inchoative derivative from the base of apere "to join" — more at apt entry 1
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