skilful
part of speech
adjective (skilful, more skilful, most skilful; US spelling skillful); adverb skilfully
meaning for a pupil
1) Skilful means very good at doing something because of practice and ability. tree →
2) Something done in a skilful way is done with great skill. tree →
sense in the lessons
In sport, art, music and DT, a skilful player, painter or builder does things well and neatly. School reports may praise skilful work. In stories, a skilful thief or sailor is one with great ability. Being skilful usually comes from practice, not just talent.
examples
- She is a skilful footballer who can dribble past anyone. tree →
- The skilful potter made a perfect bowl. tree →
- It took skilful hands to fix the old clock. tree →
- He was a skilful liar, but he got caught in the end. tree →
- The skilful pilot landed the plane in the storm. tree →
- With practice you can become a skilful juggler. tree →
- She made a skilful drawing of a horse. tree →
- The game was set then, and her play was so skilful that Art was hard put to counter her moves. tree →
note
UK, Ireland, Australia, NZ: skilful (one l in the middle); USA: skillful (two l's); Canada often uses skillful. Noun: skill. Adverb: skilfully (UK) / skillfully (US).
In the corpora
- English borrowed gauche to mean clumsy and adroit (from à droit) to mean skilful.
- to devise skilful works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass,
- And to devise skilful works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass,
- and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood, to work in all manner of skilful workmanship.
- The captain of fifty, and the man of rank, and the counsellor, and the cunning charmer, and the skilful enchanter.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «skilful» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.