dexterity
Americannoun
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dexterities
plural
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skill or adroitness in using the hands or body; agility.
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mental adroitness or skill; cleverness.
noun
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physical, esp manual, skill or nimbleness
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mental skill or adroitness: cleverness
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rare the characteristic of being right-handed
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of dexterity
First recorded in 1520–30; from Latin dexteritās “readiness, skillfulness,” from dexter “skillful” + -itās -ity
Explanation
If you fall asleep with your heavy head on your arm, you might not have the dexterity, or control of your hand, to hit the OFF button on the alarm clock in the morning. Very small children do well with mittens, because their dexterity, or skill in using their hands, isn’t as developed as in older kids and adults, who wear gloves to separate their fingers. Dexterity helps fingers and hands to coordinate for completing fine tasks like writing, sewing, and playing string instruments. "Mental dexterity" means a sharpness of mind, or skill in thinking creatively and understanding and expressing something quickly and easily.
Vocabulary lists containing dexterity
Romeo and Juliet
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The Hunger Games
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "D"
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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.
See Examples For:
He handles a violin and a sniper’s rifle with equal dexterity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
The main aim of the offer is to perform tasks requiring dexterity, to train the robots of the future to use their hands.
From BBC ● Jun. 20, 2026
As the Quanta X1 Pro's clothes folding demonstrated, robots still can't match human dexterity.
From Barron's ● Jun. 11, 2026
Some scientists believe this could eventually lead to more expressive digital instruments, smarter training tools, and even rehabilitation systems that use musical movement to improve dexterity and coordination.
From Science Daily ● May 28, 2026
His slender feet are arched and poised with perfect dexterity, like a ballet dancer.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
The crusty paint on ragged burlap, the blurred and bulbous shapes, can only be made to look tragic within the context of Klee's earlier dexterities.
From Time Magazine Archive
Works of J. Linnell and S. Palmer.of study, yet unappreciated by the public, because what they do is unrecommended by dexterities of handling.
From Modern Painters Volume I (of V) by John Ruskin
And so, by a pretty rapid evolution, the dexterities which the boxing glove and the Queensberry rules were supposed to substitute for the old brutalities of Sayers and Heenan were really abolished by them.
From The Admirable Bashville or, Constancy Unrewarded by Bernard Shaw
At all events, the showy dexterities of the Dores and Gilberts prove nothing to the contrary.
From The Library by Andrew Lang
His incapacity for acquiring the dexterities by which men accommodate themselves to their neighbours' wants implied a tendency rather to under-estimate the worth, whatever it may be, of such dexterities.
From The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. A Judge of the High Court of Justice by Sir Leslie Stephen
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.
