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:
A camera operator built a custom housing that kept his hands warm at –40 degrees Celsius while he maintained enough dexterity to fly a drone.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2026
In Schoenbrun’s debut novel, “Public Access Afterworld,” the filmmaker takes a sizable risk, stripping away the meticulously crafted onscreen worlds to assert the dexterity of their prose.
From Salon ● Oct. 29, 2026
Perhaps the biggest unsolved problem is recreating the dexterity of human hands with high-precision sensors and motors, a shortfall that was on full display when the robot loaded my dishwasher.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
They describe his "social dexterity": an ability to communicate with colleagues and the public in real life and on social media.
From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2026
It wasn’t just the understanding of machinery, it was the dexterity, the talent within his fingers themselves, as if they automatically knew what to do.
From "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick
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
Miss Powers is very original in an older school, while Miss Nourse displays all the technical dexterities of the present day.
From The Galleries of the Exposition by Eugen Neuhaus
Analogy makes it easy to assume that the ways of beasts had produced channels of habit and predisposition along which dexterities and other psycho-physical activities would run easily.
From Introduction to the Science of Sociology by Robert Ezra Park
Take, in the devil's name, the hire of your dexterities," said Ysabeau, and pushed this document with her wet pen-point toward March, "and ride for Berkeley now upon that necessary business we know of.
From Chivalry by Elizabeth Shippen Green Elliott
Discipline, the dexterities of strategy, an enlightened courage, and the tremendous force of esprit de corps were alike nullified.
From The Story of Old Fort Loudon by Mary Noailles Murfree
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
