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adept

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noun

Synonym Chooser

How is the word adept distinct from other similar adjectives?

Some common synonyms of adept are expert, proficient, skilled, and skillful. While all these words mean "having great knowledge and experience in a trade or profession," adept implies special aptitude as well as proficiency.

adept at doing long division

When is it sensible to use expert instead of adept?

While in some cases nearly identical to adept, expert implies extraordinary proficiency and often connotes knowledge as well as technical skill.

expert in the evaluation of wines

When is proficient a more appropriate choice than adept?

In some situations, the words proficient and adept are roughly equivalent. However, proficient implies a thorough competence derived from training and practice.

proficient in translating foreign languages

In what contexts can skilled take the place of adept?

The words skilled and adept can be used in similar contexts, but skilled stresses mastery of technique.

a skilled surgeon

When might skillful be a better fit than adept?

The meanings of skillful and adept largely overlap; however, skillful implies individual dexterity in execution or performance.

skillful drivers

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of adept
Adjective
Audiences witnessed that adept intuitiveness in the most recent season when castaway Eva Erickson, who has autism, got overstimulated during an immunity challenge, prompting Probst to encourage Erickson’s fellow castaway and friend, Joe Hunter, to take a beat to comfort her. Mckinley Franklin, HollywoodReporter, 6 Aug. 2025 Backed by an adept all-female band, Rodrigo tore through her hits. Althea Legaspi, Rolling Stone, 2 Aug. 2025
Noun
Perhaps Sheridan’s greatest magic trick occurs on Landman, where the adept acting of Billy Bob Thornton and Jon Hamm make the case that Thornton’s oil-field fixer and Hamm’s billionaire are the true American martyrs. Stephen Rodrick, Rolling Stone, 9 Mar. 2025 Around him, dense as a swarm of tiny insects, float tiny images of fellow adepts engaged in all manner of outré shenanigans. Holland Cotter, New York Times, 26 Dec. 2024 See All Example Sentences for adept
Recent Examples of Synonyms for adept
Adjective
  • The team must be skilled in rigorous experimentation to enable translation of data into meaningful insights.
    Mohit Agrawal, Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2025
  • The company could also serve as a magnet for high skilled and high wage labor and lead to spinoff companies, the city’s presentation said.
    Harrison Mantas, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 13 Aug. 2025
Noun
  • Dealing with rising costs and a pursuit of experiences and self-care are taking precedence over long-term financial planning, experts observed.
    Yeo Boon Ping, CNBC, 14 Aug. 2025
  • Working in unprepared landscapes puts firefighters' lives at risk, said Alexander Held, a senior expert in fire management at the European Forest Institute, adding authorities should prepare by creating buffer zones and clearing combustible vegetation.
    USA Today, USA Today, 14 Aug. 2025
Adjective
  • Schlesinger is equally proficient on acoustic and electric keyboards, and his compositions are exhilarating.
    Bret Saunders, Denver Post, 2 Aug. 2025
  • Interestingly, the study’s authors noted that the mummy’s right forearm tattoos were more technically proficient and detailed than those on the left.
    Andrew Paul Jul 31, Popular Science, 31 July 2025
Noun
  • Rihanna has long been the master of maternity fashion.
    Anna Cafolla, Vogue, 8 Aug. 2025
  • Those students could earn $55,000 while taking classes for their master’s degrees and working in the field under mentors at MPS.
    Rory Linnane, jsonline.com, 7 Aug. 2025
Adjective
  • The story follows Winston Smith, a skillful worker rewriting history in the Ministry of Truth, who starts to look back fondly on the days before the Party took over the region of Oceania and implemented their cult of personality devoid of free thought and individuality.
    Robert English, EW.com, 30 July 2025
  • But the game's structure also allows skillful and/or impatient players to zip to the game's conclusion quite quickly, rushing through the visually inventive bosses that guard the game's major chokepoints.
    ArsTechnica, ArsTechnica, 16 July 2025
Noun
  • On every episode of this podcast, host Lena Crown speaks with writers, artists, critics, and scholars across generations who have awakened something for one another.
    Awakeners August 7, Literary Hub, 7 Aug. 2025
  • Yet Putin, who likely has a coterie of scholars on international criminal law who have explained to him the mechanics of personal immunity, is likely to do everything to hold onto power for as long as possible, to avoid losing his protection from trial for war crimes and armed aggression.
    Kevin Holden Platt, Forbes.com, 7 Aug. 2025
Adjective
  • According to the study, all participants were highly experienced, and AI was the only modifiable factor among them.
    Thomas Westerholm, MSNBC Newsweek, 15 Aug. 2025
  • Then hire an experienced professional—maybe two—to own them outright.
    Chad Willardson, Forbes.com, 15 Aug. 2025
Noun
  • The Match tells the true story of how, in the face of discrimination and exclusion, British-Jewish rising tennis star Angela Buxton and African American athletic virtuoso Althea Gibson formed an unlikely pair that took Wimbledon by storm and forged a lifelong friendship.
    Matt Grobar, Deadline, 13 May 2025
  • Billy Woods rose out of the Brooklyn rap underground as a virtuoso poet, one of hip-hop’s most independent and brilliant minds over the past two decades.
    Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, 10 May 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Adept.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/adept. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025.

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