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Skillful   /skˈɪlfəl/   Listen
Skillful

adjective
1.
Having or showing knowledge and skill and aptitude.  Synonyms: adept, expert, good, practiced, proficient, skilful.  "An adept juggler" , "An expert job" , "A good mechanic" , "A practiced marksman" , "A proficient engineer" , "A lesser-known but no less skillful composer" , "The effect was achieved by skillful retouching"
2.
Done with delicacy and skill.  Synonym: nice.  "A job requiring nice measurements with a micrometer" , "A nice shot"



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"Skillful" Quotes from Famous Books



... deserved the patronage of the Queen. Keysar described the Blackfriars Children whom he had reorganized as "a company of the most expert and skillful actors within the realm of England, to the number of eighteen or twenty persons, all or most of them, trained up in that service in the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth for ten years together."[533] And to these, as I have pointed out, it seems likely that the best members of the ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... heathen go astray, speaking lies as soon as they are born. In China a mother will give her boy a reward for the best falsehood that he can tell. Beginning so early, and regarding it such a fine thing to tell wrong stories, they become skillful in falsehoods. Some parents in Christian America are very careless in this matter. It made my heart ache one day when I saw a lady in a street car trying to keep her little boy awake by telling him that, if he went to sleep, that ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw

... of secretary of the treasury was the most important of all. Everything pertaining to the finances of the country was in confusion, and needed a skillful hand in re-arranging and systematizing the inharmonious and incoherent fiscal machinery, so as to ascertain the actual resources of the treasury, and to adopt measures for restoring the credit of the country upon ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... I have acquired a gizzard.' With that he took a great piece of blanquette de veau and to all appearances swallowed it whole without changing his expression. I choked so I had to leave the table and I believe Mrs. Pace, to this day, thinks that by a skillful legerdemain I swallowed the veal! Anyhow, Bobby ate to suit ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed

... the oar. Although he was not as skillful as Ike, he did well, and the boat sped on upon the deep bosom of the Kentucky. The work was good for Harry. It made his blood flow once more in a full tide and he ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... demands upon those who fight. To an infinitely greater degree than ever before the outcome depends upon long preparation in advance, and upon the skillful and unified use of the nation's entire social and industrial no less than military power. The work of the general staff is infinitely more important than any work of the kind in times past. The actual machinery of both ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... have given us a very good welcome into the war. They are not very skillful at such a task: they do not know how to say "Welcome" very vociferously. But they have said it to the very best of their ability. My speeches (which I send you, with some comment) were very well received indeed. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... say, "2 sous and 2 deniers for the same purpose which costs 12 sous per livre to those chargeable with the taille." According to Calonne, "if concessions and privileges had been suppressed the vingtiemes would have furnished double the amount." In this respect the most opulent were the most skillful in protecting themselves. "With the intendants," said the Duc d'Orleans, "I settle matters, and pay about what I please," and he calculated that the provincial administration, rigorously taxing him, would cause him to lose 300,000 livres rental. It has been proved that the princes of the blood ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... were at the place of Graham and Peter's delight, a shooting gallery, where if one were very skillful he might, with a massive looking gun, hit a small moving black ball and hear a bell ring. Mr. Bartlett hit the ball today three times out of four, Graham once out of five, but Peter, manfully lifting the large gun and scanning its barrel, ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... the most skillful Parliamentary tactician and the most accomplished speaker in the House of Lords. In 1834, (when he was a member of the House of Commons,) Macaulay said of him, that "his knowledge of the science ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... together to excite speculation in the minds of beholders, or uncomfortable misgivings in the minds of those chiefly concerned. Quite the contrary. If any watchful fairy had suggested to Arthur the possibility of such a web, as the skillful mamma was weaving around him, he would have laughed at the idea as the suggestion of a very ill-natured, evil-minded sprite indeed. Did not mamma keep watchful eyes on Fanny always? Had she not many ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... Being is powerful or skillful, just so far as the telescope shows power, or the microscope shows skill, if his moral law is to be ascertained simply by the physical processes of the animal frame, or his will gathered from the immediate issues ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... "Origin of Species" does not purport to be philosophical. In this aspect it is very different from the cognate works of Mr. Spencer. Darwin does not speculate on the origin of the universe, on the nature of matter, or of force. He is simply a naturalist, a careful and laborious observer; skillful in his descriptions, and singularly candid in dealing with the difficulties in the way of his peculiar doctrine. He set before himself a single problem, namely, How are the fauna and flora of our earth to be accounted for? In the solution of ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... with earnestness, sincerity and fire, the sentiments of a poetic soul, a generous heart, and an immense intelligence, on subjects of consequence to humanity, have a higher value than can attach to skillful development of plot and intrigue, mere display of literary cleverness, or of the storings ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... excellent artist, hath so contrived his work that with the selfsame instrument, without a new creation, he may effect his obscurest designs. Thus he sweeteneth the water with a wood, preserveth the creatures in the ark, which the blast of his mouth might have as easily created; for God is like a skillful geometrician, who when more easily, and with one stroke of his compass, he might describe or divide a right line, had yet rather to do this in a circle or longer way, according to the constituted and forelaid principles of his art: yet this rule of his he doth sometimes pervert ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... working at his wheel; and it is wonderful to see the beautiful effects he can produce. He can take a lump of clay, and from that shapeless mass of matter he can make vessels and ornaments of rarest beauty. He has no machinery but that simple wheel, but by that and the skillful movements of his hand, he can evolve beauty out of chaos. It made me think of the way God evolved this beautiful world out of chaos at first. There is this difference, that the potter uses mechanical power, and he uses his hands, whereas God uses only His word and will. He spake and it was ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... sea Borne headlong thwart his course, the foaming flood Obstreperous views awhile, then quick retires, So he, and his attendants thus bespake. How oft, my countrymen! have we admired 715 The noble Hector, skillful at the spear And unappall'd in fight? but still hath he Some God his guard, and even now I view In human form Mars moving at his side. Ye, then, with faces to the Trojans turn'd, 720 Ceaseless retire, and war not with the Gods. He ended; and the Trojans now approach'd. Then ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... in proportion as the physician is more skillful, by so much he gives less medicine, and relies more on imagination, nature, and, above all, regimen and nursing. Here is a story in point. There was an old gentleman in Paris, who sold a famous eye-water, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... letter," he went on, waving the piece of sterile platinum wire with which he had been transferring drops of liquid in his search for germs, "was a much more skillful bacteriologist than I thought, evidently. No, the trouble does not seem to be from germs breathed in, or from germs at all—it is from some kind of germ-free toxin that has been injected ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... of 1852, I submitted several Queen Bees to Dr. Joseph Leidy of Philadelphia, for a scientific examination. I need hardly say to any Naturalist in this country, that Dr. Leidy has obtained the very highest reputation, both at home and abroad, as a skillful naturalist and microscopic anatomist. No man in this country or Europe, was more competent to make the investigations that I desired. He found in making his dissections, a small globular sac, not larger than a grain of ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... dog a bone, to some ingenious archangel with a theory. Then you enjoy the spectacle of that seraph about as busy over this notable world as a child with a mud pie. The winged one sets to work with a will. A little pinch of life; develops under his skillful manipulation; evolution takes its remorseless course through the wastes of Time until—behold! the apotheosis of the ape at last. Picture that well-meaning but muddle-headed archangel's dismay at such a ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... father drew Alexander as far as Rome, and charged him with an attempt of poisoning him before Caesar. Alexander could hardly speak for lamentation; but having a judge that was more skillful than Antipater, and more wise than Herod, he modestly avoided laying any imputation upon his father, but with great strength of reason confuted the calumnies laid against him; and when he had demonstrated the innocency of his brother, who was in the like danger with himself, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... was accompanied by a private memorandum from him to the effect that he preferred the Chesapeake as the scene of operations. Accordingly de Grasse sent the messenger frigate back with word of his intention to go to Chesapeake Bay. He then made skillful arrangements for the transport of all available troops, and set sail with every ship he could muster, steering by the less frequented Old Bahama Channel in order ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... Even now, with our vastly increased belongings of external life, avocations, and habits, nearly all that is absolutely necessary for our physical needs can be expressed in pantomime. Far beyond the mere signs for eating, drinking, sleeping, and the like, any one will understand a skillful representation in signs of a tailor, shoemaker, blacksmith, weaver, sailor, farmer, or doctor. So of washing, dressing, shaving, walking, driving, writing, reading, churning, milking, boiling, roasting or frying, making bread or preparing coffee, shooting, fishing, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... tabernacle, He stoops to each one of you and sweetly whispers: 'My daughter of the crimson Cross, of the faithful soul, of the clean heart, and skillful hand, I am sending you over there as My own representative. I know you will not fail Me, and that even unto death you will be true to the Cross and Flag that go before you!' The Nation is proud of you and you are the holiest ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... your name?" asked the girl from the North, giving herself up to the ministrations of the maid, who seemed quite skillful. ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... custard paste The slim waist Of your tartlet-molds; the top With a skillful finger print, Nick and dint, Round their edge, then, drop by drop, In its little dainty bed Your cream shed: In the oven place each mold: Reappearing, softly browned, The renowned ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... railwaymen striking was the last straw), and the mystery is what will happen next. There are evidences that the extreme militarists are spitting on their hands to take hold in spite of their defeat, and also that the President, who is said to be a moderate and skillful politician, is nursing things along to get matters more and more into his own hands. Although he issued a mandate against the students and commending the traitors, the students' victory seems to have strengthened him. I can't figure it out, but it is part of the general beginning to read at ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey

... the Revolution, affords a striking example. He was brave, skillful, often held high command, and always possessed Washington's confidence, yet he never won a battle. To compensate him somewhat for his misfortunes Washington designated him to receive the surrender at Yorktown, October ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... the producers only a very small price compared with what they required the Spaniards to pay them. Finally, they took possession of that part of Spain where the mines were situated, and worked the mines themselves. They dug deeper; they employed skillful engineers to make pumps to raise the water, which always accumulates in mines, and prevents their being worked to any great depth unless the miners have a considerable degree of scientific and mechanical skill. They founded a city here, which ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... far opposed by the action of alcohol, as that the maximum efforts of each are incompatible with the ingestion of any moderate quantity of fermented liquid. Indeed, there is scarcely any calling which demands skillful and exact effort of mind and body, or which requires the balanced exercise of many faculties, that does not illustrate this rule. The mathematician, the gambler, the metaphysician, the billiard-player, the author, ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... become larger, warm fomentations, poultices, and stimulating embrocations should be applied, in order to bring the protuberance to its full formation as soon as possible. When full, a seton should be passed, by a skillful hand, from the top to the bottom of the tumor, so that all the pus may have free access of escape. The incision should be kept free until all the matter has escaped and the wound shows signs of healing. The after ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley

... were the moving armies, and once beyond the defensive zone we could, at our own risk, go where we chose. My permit stated that we were bound for Lagny, which is about twelve miles from the gates and well outside the circle of defense. I took one of the Embassy automobiles driven by a skillful American amateur, Melvin Hall. He drove his own six-cylinder high-power car, carrying a ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... conviction has become general that, as workers, as teachers, and as discoverers, there is no career more inviting or more lucrative or more dignified than that of the skillful foster-father ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall

... sacrifices we like to have them appreciated, at least, and for a minute Amy was sorry she had done it, feeling that virtue was not always its own reward. But it is, as she presently discovered, for her spirits began to rise, and her table to blossom under her skillful hands, the girls were very kind, and that one little act seemed to have cleared the ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... rendered me very sensible to the attractions of voluptuousness: I was always cheerful and ever ready to pass from one enjoyment to another, and I was at the same time very skillful in inventing new pleasures. Thence, I suppose, my natural disposition to make fresh acquaintances, and to break with them so readily, although always for a good reason, and never through mere fickleness. The errors caused by temperament are not to be corrected, because our ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... grandfather as well. He seemed to have no more anxious thoughts about anything. He did not need to have while Davie stayed at home; but even after Davie went away, and the management of the farm fell for the most part into the less skillful hands of the younger brothers, their grandfather "took things easy," the lads ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson

... were circulated among his followers and most of them readily embraced the pardon which they held out. Thus—in a few days—many brave men and skillful artillerists flocked to the red-white-and-blue standard of the United States. And when—a few months afterwards—Old Hickory and his men were crouched behind a line of cotton bales, awaiting the attack of a British army ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... not proceed from any malitious ill-natur'd Coyness, as some imagine, but from an ingenuous modesty and bashfulness, which usually accompanies, and is a proof of Simplicity: Tis very rare, says Pliny, to find a man so exquisitely skillful, as to be able to show those Features in a Picture which he hides, and I think it to be so difficult a task, that none but the most excellent Wits can attempt it with success: For small Wits usually abound with a multitude ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin

... established forever. If out of a hundred men ninety-nine desire peace and trouble no further, the one man over will arm himself and set up oppression and war again. Peace must be organized and maintained. This present monstrous catastrophe is the outcome of forty-three years of skillful, industrious, systematic world armament. Only by a disarmament as systematic, as skillful, and as devoted may we hope to ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... from intellectual power. His mind is neither profound nor subtle. His serious writings are sound but not characterized by originality, nor in his policies is there anything to indicate creative genius. He thinks straight and possesses the ability to concentrate on a single line of effort. He is skillful in catching an idea and adapting it to his purposes. Combined with his power of expression and his talent for making phrases, such qualities were of great assistance to him. But the real strength of the President ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... the other workmen, skillful fellows, who knew as Hugh had never known, the science of their iron craft, came straggling through the shop door into his presence. They were a little embarrassed before him. The greatness of his ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... where we had left Wallace and the cowboys. Frank had solved the problem of water supply, for he had found a little spring trickling from a cliff, which, by skillful management, produced enough drink for the horses. We had packed our ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey

... And perhaps it was well for some of them that they did not find what they sought, as the wilderness furnished no more formidable antagonist than Henry Ware, and Paul Cotter, too, was both brave and skillful. ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... imaginative poetry. With broad emphasis this aesthetic law is exemplified in the verse of Voltaire, especially in his dramas, and in the verse of one who was deeper and higher than he as thinker and critic, of Lessing. Skillful versifiers, by help of fancy and a certain plastic aptitude and laborious culture, are enabled to give to smooth verse a flavor of poetry and to achieve a temporary reputation. But of such uninspired workmanship ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... can shoot or fence better than he. In such a case, it is immaterial in what way I kill him, whether I attack him from the front or the rear. From a moral point of view, the right of the stronger is no more convincing than the right of the more skillful; and it is skill which is employed if you murder a a man treacherously. Might and skill are in this case equally right; in a duel, for instance, both the one and the other come into play; for a feint is only another name for treachery. If I consider ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer

... of Juba, was called a little sooner than he expected, and came on the boards with his mouth full of honey-cake. Speech was out of the question—vox haesit—there was a momentary deadlock in his throat. The audience began to laugh, but the prince was not to be counted out. With a skillful rotary finger he removed the viand, and brought down the house by calmly taking up his lines as if nothing had happened. He was then ten years old, and deep in love with the leading lady. A year or two later he had decided to follow the sea; but a short experiment of sleeping on the floor ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

... the vessel in which they were brought over. This information was received from one of the oldest inhabitants, a native himself, and exceedingly fond of missionaries. He is said also to be very skillful in the ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... a Flame City youth, a lad of about eighteen, and the son of the postmaster. Bob and Betty ran down to the road to see him as he stopped his motorcycle with skillful abruptness. ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson

... healthiest foliage and fruit; ripens the most uniformly and perfectly; and either sells best in market, or makes the best wine, and which, at the same time, is of good quality, and productive enough. Your observations, thus taken, will be a better guide than the opinion of the most skillful grape ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann

... I did not visit the departments to-day, but employed myself in securing lodgings at a boarding-house. Here I met, the first time, with my friend Dr. W. T. Sawyer, of Hollow Square, Alabama. A skillful surgeon and Christian gentleman, his mission on earth seems to be one of pure beneficence. He had known me before we met, it appears; and I must say he did me many ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... For the one they had no rent to pay, but for the other they paid fifty dollars rent. Dr. Townley would gladly have charged nothing, but he was a comparatively poor man, and could not afford to be as generous as his heart would have dictated. He had a fair income, being skillful and in good practice, but he had a son in college, and his expenses were a considerable drain upon his father's purse. Still, with the money saved, and Andy's weekly earnings, the Burkes were able to live very comfortably ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... is granitic, overlaid by sandstone, laterite or clay ironstone, and to the north by limestone. Iron ores are found everywhere, and are so little regarded for their metallic contents that, though containing, according to Mr. Logan, a skillful geologist, sixty percent of pure metal, they are used in Singapore for macadamizing the roads! Gold has been obtained in all ages, and formerly in considerable quantities, but the annual yield ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... leaves, or jump and run and burst into play as they were used to doing. They walked steadily forward, saying very little, neither hurrying nor delaying their steps. Once when Eric's sandal came untied Ivra knelt to fix it, for she was still more skillful with knots than he. ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot

... for the day, stepped into the room, and at once in low but emphatic tones remarked: "Mrs. Sparrow, this will not do. Our patient must be kept quiet; otherwise more harm can be done in a half hour than can be overcome in a week. I will send a nurse tonight, and with skillful nursing we will, if possible, save ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor

... been taken by them over their masculine competitors. Lizzie B. Humphrey, Jessie Curtis, Sarah W. Whitman and Fidelia Bridges, take high rank as artists. Helen M. Knowlton, a pupil of William M. Hunt, is a skillful artist in charcoal and has produced some fine pictures. Women form a large proportion of the students in the school of design recently opened in Boston. A great deal of the ornamental painting now so fashionable ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... I can say that I am more than moderately skillful with the sword. It is, possibly, the one hobby of my life. My father and grandfather before me were strong fencers, and one of my earliest recollections is being given a toy foil and put through the parades. There is a saying that "a swordsman is born not made," and it is a true one. But, ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... nine classes there was no distinctive exhibits by women, but the outcome of their skillful labor on the wonderful machines was purely ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... wave that breaks over a ship and gives the sailors no respite Amycus came on at Polydeuces. He pushed in upon him, thinking to bear him down and overwhelm him. But as the skillful steersman keeps the ship from being overwhelmed by the monstrous wave, so Polydeuces, all skill and lightness, baffled the rushes of Amycus. At last Amycus, standing on the tips of his toes and rising high above him, tried to bring ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... doing the cynical, nobody heeded him; quick and skillful fingers were undoing the parcel, and the ladies' cheeks flushed and their eyes glistened, and their fingers felt the stuff inside and out: in which occupation Raby left them, saying, "Full dress, mind! We Rabys ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... banner; and the earl was much gratified at finding that the ranks of heavily-armed retainers whom he would take with him were to be swollen by the addition of so useful a contingent as that of one hundred skillful archers. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... on the part of the Indians, was one of ambuscades and surprises. They never once met the English in open field; but always, even if eightfold in numbers, fled timorously before infantry. They were secret as beasts of prey, skillful marksmen, and in part provided with firearms, fleet of foot, conversant with all the paths of the forest, patient of fatigue, and mad with a passion for rapine, vengeance, and destruction, retreating into ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... master was about to make great changes, he being deeply in debt. By the aid of a chambermaid she was secreted on a boat, and kept the two children drugged with opiates until she feared they would never come to life. But after her arrival, under the care of a skillful physician, they survived. She had found good friends among her own people and Church two years. I found her weeping, with the two youngest in her arms, the oldest sitting on a stool at her feet. With fast-falling tears she kissed her babes. "O ma's precious darlings, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... the worth of an article. A display of efficient workmanship is pleasing simply as such, even where its remoter, for the time unconsidered, outcome is futile. There is a gratification of the artistic sense in the contemplation of skillful work. But it is also to be added that no such evidence of skillful workmanship, or of ingenious and effective adaptation of means to an end, will, in the long run, enjoy the approbation of the modern civilized consumer unless it has the sanction of ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... to the sick, was, perhaps, the most useful practice of conventual life, and the monks had always among them practitioners of the healing art, more or less skillful. Of this number, Roger Bacon was the most eminent, not only in the monastery to which he ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... slave. He, therefore, who seeks to press (p. 110) fiction into a work so foreign to its nature as the inculcation of political opinions, must, if he hopes to succeed, make the story suggest the lesson without conveying it obtrusively. Above all is there need of delicate touch and skillful handling, if the aim be to affect those who are prejudiced against the views expressed, or whose interests are involved in the fate of those attacked. But Cooper's was never a delicate touch. What he ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... down they climbed up straightway over the backs of lesser men. He thought of Robbin-Steele. A man like that would die with the harness of the money-game on his back, reaching for more. Gower was of the same type, skillful in all the tricks of the game, ruthless, greedy for power and schooled to grasp it in ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... the sort occurred at the siege of Havannah, in 1763. The present achievement I consider one of the greatest deeds of modern times. That is my opinion, and I give the highest credit to those who performed such a service. It was altogether a most skillful proceeding. I was greatly surprised at the small number of men that were lost on board the fleet; and, on inquiring how it happened, I discovered that it was because the vessels were moored within one-third of the ordinary distance. The guns of the fortress were intended to strike ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... histories to him, that are lessons for sinning. In vain; for, heart-whole as yet, he receives his words deafer than the Icarian rocks. But with regard to you, have a care lest your neighbor Enipeus prove too pleasing. Though no other person equally skillful to guide the steed, is conspicuous in the course, nor does any one with equal swiftness swim down the Etrurian stream, yet secure your house at the very approach of night, nor look down into the streets at the sound of the doleful pipe; and remain ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... the army of India in his twenty-eighth year, and waited till he was sixty-two for the opportunity to show himself fitted to command and skillful to plan. During those four and thirty years of waiting, he was busy preparing himself for that march to Lucknow which was to make him famous as ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... he's so wonderfully skillful and bold that he might get here in some fashion. Now I think we ought to make a good search among these ruins, Mr. Scott. It's more than likely that the Germans have passed on, but there's a chance that they will linger. You're ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the proofs of the game which Zalika Rojanow and her son played in Paris. I know the sources from which the money came on which you lived after she had lost her fortune. She was greatly sought after for her peculiar accomplishments, for she was very skillful. He who paid the highest ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... Milly's cleverness, but this night as hostess and an accomplice she won my everlasting admiration. She contrived to give the impression that Whit was a frequent visitor at her home and very welcome. She brought out his best points, and in her skillful hands he lost embarrassment and awkwardness. Before the evening was over Nan regarded Whit with different eyes, and she never dreamed that everything had not come about naturally. Then Milly somehow got me out on the porch, leaving Nan and ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey

... of the Tennessee River; and he said, "That's the true line of operations." This occurred more than a month before General Grant began the movement, and, as he was subject to General Halleck's orders, I have always given Halleck the full credit for that movement, which was skillful, successful, and extremely rich in military results; indeed, it was the first real success on our side in the civil war. The movement up the Tennessee began about the 1st of February, and Fort Henry was captured by the joint action ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... distinguished persons mentioned in the index, without further assistance whatever. It is impossible here to give an account of the many splendid tombs and monuments erected there by loving hearts and skillful hands, in memory of dear friends and relatives that have "gone away!" What multitudes of strange and curious designs meet the eye here! Some few perhaps seem odd; but most of them bear appropriate emblems, and convey sweet thoughts and tender sentiments in behalf ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... it. And, it must be borne in mind that in the course of the prolific verbosity of pontificated dogma which has graced the scroll of medical science, whole libraries have been written—and ably written, too—by skillful pens for the sole purpose of covering the simple nudity of the agnostic position of science—the dreaded, confidence-shattering ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... decoration, though a very meager one; but its relative mass, the ball, being gradated in three dimensions, is always delightful. Here[8] is at once the simplest, and, in mere patient mechanism, the most skillful, piece of sculpture I can possibly show you,—a piece of the purest rock-crystal, chiseled, (I believe, by mere toil of hand,) into a perfect sphere. Imitating nothing, constructing nothing; sculpture for sculpture's sake of purest natural substance ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... Give back to me my fright. Give back to me the agitation that I felt when suddenly a shot swept the fragrant mint beneath my bounds, or when amid the bushes of wild quince my nose touched the cold copper of a snare. Give back to me the dawn upon the waters from which the skillful fisherman withdraws his lines heavy with eels. Give back to me the blue gleaning under the moon, and my timid and clandestine loves amid the wild sorrel, where I could no longer distinguish the rosy tongue of my beloved from ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes

... gesticulation before he commences his exercises in declamation. If the student designs to qualify himself to be a professor of elocution, he will need to study the laws of gesture in "Austin's Chironomia," and be instructed in their application by a skillful teacher. But this course is neither practicable nor necessary for the mass of students. Instruction in this department should generally be of a negative nature, and occupy itself mainly in the correction of faults. When the pupil commences his exercises in declamation, the less said about ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... influence, and their good receives: By objects, which might force the soul to abate Her feeling, rendered more compassionate; Is placable—because occasions rise So often that demand such sacrifice; More skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure, As tempted more; more able to endure, As more exposed to suffering and distress; Thence also, more alive to tenderness. —'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends Upon that law as on the best of friends; ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... celebrated the maddest orgies on our path, and Death, with passionate vehemence, had swung his sharpest scythe. Wild savagery and merciless destruction had blended with the shrewdest deliberation and skillful knowledge in constructing the bars which the German, avoiding his own good familiar word, called barricades. An elderly gentleman who was explaining their construction, pointed out to us the ingenuity with which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Austrian millionaires. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack— but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially: I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe

... existence which enveloped her family always; and it became an interesting problem to the Peabodys to entice the reticent Hawthornes into it, from the adjacent Herbert Street,—by gentle degrees, well-adjusted baits, and affectionate compliments. Trout-fishing comes to mind,—and the trout were very skillful in keeping aloof. Nevertheless, Hawthorne liked all he heard and saw at the Peabodys' in Charter Street; and Sophia, his future wife, gleams near him as the unwitting guide to the warm contact with his kind for which he searched, though with ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... certainly knew what good story-telling was, had the highest opinion of her abilities, and it is difficult to see how any reader with a fair amount of catholicity in his nature can fail to be impressed with her power to build up a story in skillful dramatic fashion, to portray various types of character in most convincing manner, and to emphasize in unforgettable ways the old and basic verities of life. Of course fashions change in outward matters, and we must not quarrel with a taste that prefers the newest in literature ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... distribution, and that each officer shall be limited in accordance with that distribution, for without such limitations there can be no security for liberty. If, whatever great officer of state happens to be the most forceful, skillful, and ambitious, is permitted to overrun and absorb to himself the powers of all other officers and to control their action, there ensues that concentration of power which destroys the working of free institutions, enables the holder to continue himself in power, and leaves no opportunity ...
— Experiments in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution • Elihu Root

... Though a Goth, he was so far from delighting in the destruction of public monuments, and works of art, that he issued edicts for their preservation at Rome and throughout Italy, and assigned revenues for the repair of the public edifices, for which purpose he employed the most skillful and learned architects, particularly Aloisius, Boetius, and Symmachus. According to Cassiodorus (lib. ii. Varior. Epist. xxxix.), Theodoric said: "It is glorious to preserve the works of antiquity; and it is our duty to restore the most useful and the most beautiful." ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... mind" into the telephone sender and hung up the receiver. She was frightened, but not convinced. Hers was a slow, old-fashioned mind, and to it the scheme it had worked out seemed a model of skillful duplicity. But Ruth, of the younger and subtler generation, realized instantly how transparent the thing was. Mrs. Warham was abashed but not angered by her daughter's ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... utmost precision. He was careful that his ink and his pigments should be of the most brilliant color and the finest quality. He looked well to the care of his pen and inscribed each letter with the patient care of the most skillful engrosser ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton

... in; conversant with, familiar with. erudite, instructed, leaned, lettered, educated; well conned, well informed, well read, well grounded, well educated; enlightened, shrewd, savant, blue, bookish, scholastic, solid, profound, deep-read, book- learned; accomplished &c (skillful) 698; omniscient; self-taught. known &c v.; ascertained, well-known, recognized, received, notorious, noted; proverbial; familiar, familiar as household words, familiar to every schoolboy; hackneyed, trite, trivial, commonplace. cognoscible^, cognizable. Adv. to one's knowledge, to the best ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... stood in the timber, whose columns and aisles opened around it like a vast cathedral, where the rocks were altars and the birds were choirs. It was built of rude logs, and had hard benches, but the plain people had done more skillful work on this forest sanctuary than on the school-house. The log meeting-house stood near the log school-house, and both revealed the heart of the people who built them. It was the Prussian school-master, trained in the moral education of Pestalozzi, that made the German ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... town, unable to follow the army and too plucky to live on charity, had been among the first to ask for work. The directeur beat his forehead when I asked him how they behaved when not actually at the machines, but at least they had proved as faithful and skillful ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... of growing better the patient grew worse, and for days life was despaired of. The most skillful medical treatment, and the most careful nursing scarcely saved his life. And even after the imminent danger was over, it was weeks before he was able to be lifted from the bed to ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... I assure you; for they all fell to work as busy as bees, flying and buzzing about with much laughter as they worked their pleasant miracle. Mr. Chrome acted more like the father of a large family than a crusty bachelor, Miss Kent's skillful fingers flew as they never did before, and Mrs. Smith trotted up and down as briskly as if she were sixteen instead of being a stout old woman ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... Dartmouth, England, had first succeeded in getting his engine to work. The hard fight to wrest from nature a manageable motive power and to harness fire for industrial use was continued by this clever blacksmith, and he succeeded when the more profound but less constructively skillful philosophers had failed. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... how much that keen old fisherman already knew, from a skillful baiting of Martha, about the visit of the Elders that afternoon; while his knowledge of Dan's character from childhood, enabled the physician to guess more than a little of the thoughts that occupied the young man pacing the floor of his room. ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... their most skillful efforts, the boys did not have good luck, and returned with but a small catch of fish. Hilarity due to the way the boys told how they had to fish made up for the lack and for everything else. When everything was packed neatly again, and all were ready to start, Jake gave a wild leap ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... to me that every young woman should aim to be something and do something. Her powers of mind and body should be applied to a good end. Her hands should be set to some useful employment and made skillful in it. It matters not so much what it is, as how ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... medical treatment had also something to do with this improvement, for Lord Cameron placed him under the care of one of the most skillful physicians of London, who happened to be summering on ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... the older boy seems to see. This is because his brain has been trained to interpret the impressions that even the baby eyes received but did not understand. Of course, where the instrument is found to be imperfect we can assist it by means of additional lenses, or perhaps by some one of the skillful operations now performed by oculists, and, as the sight is of such increased importance to a deaf child, the greatest care and watchfulness should be given to his eyes. Do not let him sleep, or lie, facing the sun, ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright

... some distance down the river by several of our citizens, who, seeing him pass several rock-heaps in quite a skillful manner, bade him adieu and ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... a number of people come to live together, even in a pioneer community, it is likely that some members will have a knack for doing certain things of use to the community better than others can do them. Thus one man may be especially skillful in making axe handles. In time, the entire community comes to depend upon him for its axe handles. In addition, he probably makes other tools and does repair work of all kinds. This requires so much of his time that he does ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn



Words linked to "Skillful" :   skilled, precise, proficient



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