Adept
WordNet
adjective
(1) Having or showing knowledge and skill and aptitude
"Adept in handicrafts"
"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"
noun
(2) Someone who is dazzlingly skilled in any field
WiktionaryText
Etymology
From , from , the past participle of .
Adjective
- Well skilled; completely versed; thoroughly proficient.
Quotations
- 1837-1839: Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
- Adept as she was, in all the arts of cunning and dissimulation, the girl Nancy could not wholly conceal the effect which the knowledge of the step she had taken, wrought upon her mind.
Noun
- One fully skilled or well versed in anything; a proficient; as, adepts in philosophy.
Quotations
- 1841: Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge
- When he had achieved this task, he applied himself to the acquisition of stable language, in which he soon became such an adept, that he would perch outside my window and drive imaginary horses with great skill, all day.
- 1894-95: Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure
- Others, alas, had an instinct towards artificiality in their very blood, and became adepts in counterfeiting at the first glimpse of it.