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DEXTERITY
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Adroitness in using the hands
Synonyms:
dexterity; manual dexterity; sleight
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("dexterity" is a kind of...):
adeptness; adroitness; deftness; facility; quickness (skillful performance or ability without difficulty)
Derivation:
dextrous (skillful in physical movements; especially of the hands)
Context examples:
The emperor had a mind one day to entertain me with several of the country shows, wherein they exceed all nations I have known, both for dexterity and magnificence.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
The ebb had already run some time, and I had to wade through a long belt of swampy sand, where I sank several times above the ankle, before I came to the edge of the retreating water, and wading a little way in, with some strength and dexterity, set my coracle, keel downwards, on the surface.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
I thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but found it extremely difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like dexterity, or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he was standing opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the most dreadful manner every time I caught his eye.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
My remedy was to cut them in pieces with my knife, as they flew in the air, wherein my dexterity was much admired.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
At this signal, the little elephant, with a dexterity that was next to marvellous in so small an animal, whisked the chair round with Mr. Omer in it, and rattled it off, pell-mell, into the parlour, without touching the door-post: Mr. Omer indescribably enjoying the performance, and looking back at me on the road as if it were the triumphant issue of his life's exertions.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
However, for the reasons I had offered, but chiefly to gratify the king of Luggnagg by an uncommon mark of his favour, he would comply with the singularity of my humour; but the affair must be managed with dexterity, and his officers should be commanded to let me pass, as it were by forgetfulness.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
He observed, that among the diversions of our nobility and gentry, I had mentioned gaming: he desired to know at what age this entertainment was usually taken up, and when it was laid down; how much of their time it employed; whether it ever went so high as to affect their fortunes; whether mean, vicious people, by their dexterity in that art, might not arrive at great riches, and sometimes keep our very nobles in dependence, as well as habituate them to vile companions, wholly take them from the improvement of their minds, and force them, by the losses they received, to learn and practise that infamous dexterity upon others?
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Accordingly, they have a subaltern court paid to them by persons of the best rank; and sometimes by the force of dexterity and impudence, arrive, through several gradations, to be successors to their lord.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
But the danger is much greater, when the ministers themselves are commanded to show their dexterity; for, by contending to excel themselves and their fellows, they strain so far that there is hardly one of them who has not received a fall, and some of them two or three.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
The ceremony is performed in his majesty’s great chamber of state, where the candidates are to undergo a trial of dexterity very different from the former, and such as I have not observed the least resemblance of in any other country of the new or old world.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
