DEXTEROUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does dexterous mean? 

• DEXTEROUS (adjective)
  The adjective DEXTEROUS has 1 sense:

1. skillful in physical movements; especially of the hands

  Familiarity information: DEXTEROUS used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DEXTEROUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Skillful in physical movements; especially of the hands

Synonyms:

deft; dexterous; dextrous

Context example:

dexterous of hand and inventive of mind

Similar:

adroit (quick or skillful or adept in action or thought)

 Context examples 

My mistress had a daughter of nine years old, a child of towardly parts for her age, very dexterous at her needle, and skilful in dressing her baby.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Six foot three in height, active as a squirrel, dexterous with his fingers, finally, remarkably quick-witted, for this whole ingenious story is of his concoction.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And although they are dexterous enough upon a piece of paper, in the management of the rule, the pencil, and the divider, yet in the common actions and behaviour of life, I have not seen a more clumsy, awkward, and unhandy people, nor so slow and perplexed in their conceptions upon all other subjects, except those of mathematics and music.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Now your honour is to know, that these judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing any thing unbecoming their nature or their office.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I told him, “that in the kingdom of Tribnia, by the natives called Langdon, where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the conduct, and the pay of ministers of state, and their deputies. The plots, in that kingdom, are usually the workmanship of those persons who desire to raise their own characters of profound politicians; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration; to stifle or divert general discontents; to fill their coffers with forfeitures; and raise, or sink the opinion of public credit, as either shall best answer their private advantage. It is first agreed and settled among them, what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot; then, effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers, and put the owners in chains. These papers are delivered to a set of artists, very dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters: for instance, they can discover a close stool, to signify a privy council; a flock of geese, a senate; a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, a prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of state; a chamber pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a general; a running sore, the administration.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)