adept

Madison, 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, 2003

Three 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. 2003

The 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. 2002

Barnum 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

even by the standards of Washington, he's an adept at political intrigue and power politics

Once safely back in Paris, and having attained his majority, the poet squandered his inheritance with an adept's fervor … —Nicholas Delbanco, Harper's, September 2004

They 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

He's adept in several languages.

he's an adept pitcher, and the team is lucky to have him