Did you know?
Adroit goes back to an Old French word meaning "handsome or elegant" as well as "skilled in combat." The adjective is still used to imply skillfulness, but usually not of the physical kind. Adroit most often describes cleverness that achieves one's purpose in spite of difficulties.
Synonyms
Examples of adroit in a Sentence
Walter Shapiro, Time, 10 July 1989
He was adroit with money and was blessed with the extraordinary Spanish gift of prolific, and even inchoate, invention.
—V. S. Pritchett, "Goya … ," 1975,
in A Man of Letters, 1985
Family medicine … is constructed around the unquantifiable idea that a doctor who treats your grandmother, your father, your niece, and your daughter will be more adroit in treating you.
—John McPhee, Table of Contents, 1984
She is adroit at handling problems.
with an adroit flick of the wrist, flipped the omelet into the air and landed it squarely back in the pan
Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times, 18 Nov. 2023
The fashion house is known for its adroit use of off-kilter patterns, which, in the skilled hands of Risso, convey a cerebral, never-twee aesthetic that is no less reflected in this new line.
—Lilah Ramzi, Vogue, 25 Aug. 2023
These mother-and-son exchanges rinse and repeat in the first stages of the storytelling, under the adroit direction of Rob Lutfy, mingling tension and absurdity.
—David L. Coddon, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 June 2023
Six months ago, his historic landslide victory was widely lauded, viewed as the triumph of a politically adroit change-maker whose centrist policies had swept him to power.
—Dan Bilefsky, New York Times, 7 May 2023
The Premonitions Bureau, an adroit debut from the New Yorker staff writer Sam Knight, draws us into a world not-that-far-gone in which psychic phenomena were yet untamed by science and uncanny sensations still whispered of the supernatural, of cosmic secrets.
—Ian Beacock, The New Republic, 25 Aug. 2022
Both men were adroit in working the local political system, each was fixated on focal sepsis as the cause of psychosis, and each came to lose his capacity for objectivity in the pursuit of his goal.
—Neuroskeptic, Discover Magazine, 11 Jan. 2015
Jem Bartholomew’s adroit exposition of his subject, Frank Turnbridge, left a lasting effect on me.
—Longreads, 27 Dec. 2022
Leonardo’s astonishing inventions and discoveries are illustrated here, by eight physically adroit actors, on a set by Scott Bradley inspired by the transformative genius of Leonardo himself.
—Peter Marks, Washington Post, 14 Oct. 2022
See More
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'adroit.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
borrowed from French, going back to Old French, "handsome, elegant, skilled (in combat)," from a-, prefix, perhaps with intensive value (going back to Latin ad- ad-) + droit "straight, direct, true, regular," going back to Latin directus "straight, direct" — more at dress entry 1
1652, in the meaning defined above
Articles Related to adroit
Podcast
Theme music by Joshua Stamper ©2006 New Jerusalem Music/ASCAP
Get Word of the Day delivered to your inbox!
Dictionary Entries Near adroit
Cite this Entry
“Adroit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adroit. Accessed 11 Dec. 2023.
Copy Citation
Kids Definition
adroit
adjective
Share