agile
Americanadjective
-
quick and well-coordinated in movement; lithe.
an agile leap.
- Antonyms:
- awkward
-
an agile person.
-
marked by an ability to think quickly; mentally acute or aware.
She's 95 and still very agile.
-
noting or relating to a philosophy of product development and production intended to create and distribute batches of working products in a short period of time with subsequent batches planned in a cyclical schedule of improvement, production, and distribution: agile manufacturing;
agile software programming;
agile manufacturing;
agile teams.
noun
adjective
-
quick in movement; nimble
-
mentally quick or acute
Other Word Forms
- agilely adverb
- agileness noun
- agility noun
- unagile adjective
- unagilely adverb
Etymology
Origin of agile
First recorded in 1570–80; earlier agill, from Middle French agile “nimble” and Latin agilis “easily moved, moving easily,” equivalent to ag- (base of agere “to do, drive”) + -ilis -ile
Explanation
On water skis she was agile and made sharp turns and long arcs cutting through the water, but she was a lot less agile on the snowboard, landing on her face and hands as she clunked down the slopes. People and things can be agile, or quick and graceful. Car commercials talk of "agile handling," and nature-shows feature spry creatures who survive by being agile among more slow-footed and clumsy animals. Human and virtual minds also earn the description agile when they're sharp and grasp ideas or reason with speed and easy logic. Things that are agile often are thought to be light, but even heavy machines like trains and large people like sumo wrestlers can be agile.
Vocabulary lists containing agile
100 SAT Words Beginning with "A"
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List 2
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Cat Vocabulary: A Feline Lexicon
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“It is important to be agile and nimble, maintaining a broad policy stance, and avoid making firm commitments of the future path of policy,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 21, 2026
“Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs,” D’Amaro wrote.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 14, 2026
It's a form of agile, aggressive internet diplomacy that appears to be here to stay, according to Munk.
From BBC • Apr. 11, 2026
No matter how the situation unfolds, policymakers need to stay alert and agile, Georgieva said.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 9, 2026
He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
