Literary notes about skillful (AI summary)
The word "skillful" is deployed in literature to emphasize a blend of innate talent and acquired expertise across varied pursuits. In some works it conveys careful, cautious precision—as reflected in lexical treatments that list traits like prudent and discreet [1, 2, 3]—while in others it denotes a decisive mastery in fields such as military strategy or artisan craft [4, 5, 6, 7]. Authors use the term to underline a character’s reliability, whether describing a tactician’s clever maneuvers on the battlefield [8, 9] or a professional’s deft handling of their trade, be it in medicine, music, or even humor [10, 11, 12]. This versatile adjective thus functions as a marker of excellence, lending both strategic and artistic endeavors an air of refined competence [13, 14, 15].
- careful, heedful; cautelous|, stealthy, chary, shy of, circumspect, prudent, discreet, politic; sure-footed &c. (skillful) 698.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget - be at home in, make it look easy, do it with one's eyes closed, do it in one's sleep &c. (skillful) 698.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget - V. be skillful &c. adj.; excel in, be master of; have a turn for &
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget - Cæsar was a general of much wisdom and great boldness, and very skillful in the art of war.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - A skillful general may supply the defects of the other methods by making reasonable and well-founded hypotheses.
— from The Art of War by baron de Antoine Henri Jomini - Hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi - A skillful commander will use either, or a combination of all, of these arrangements, according to circumstances.
— from The Art of War by baron de Antoine Henri Jomini - The skillful tactician may be likened to the shuai-jan.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi - Thus the skillful general conducts his army just as though he were leading a single man, willy-nilly, by the hand.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi - “You're a most skillful lawyer, I see, Nikolay Parfenovitch,” cried Mitya, laughing gayly, “but I can help you now.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - He was a thin little man, an ex-military surgeon, who passed in the neighborhood for a very skillful practitioner.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - My chef is a skillful food processor who excels at pickling and preserving these various exhibits from the ocean.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - In this respect I did not differ from him materially: I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.
— from The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe - General Smith never regained my confidence as a soldier, though I still regard him as a most accomplished gentleman and a skillful engineer.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. Sherman - Then her hair assumed successively, under her skillful hands, all the undulations she thought might assist the charms of her face.
— from The three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
