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Skillful   Listen
adjective
Skillful  adj.  
1.
Discerning; reasonable; judicious; cunning. (Obs.) "Of skillful judgment."
2.
Possessed of, or displaying, skill; knowing and ready; expert; well-versed; able in management; as, a skillful mechanic; often followed by at, in, or of; as, skillful at the organ; skillful in drawing. "And they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentations to wailing."
Synonyms: Expert; skilled; dexterous; adept; masterly; adroit; clever; cunning.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Skillful" Quotes from Famous Books



... Congress had in the flag. The story of the making of the first flag with stars and stripes is as follows. Betsy Ross, or, to speak more respectfully, Mrs. Elizabeth Griscom Ross, lived on Arch Street, Philadelphia, in a tiny house of two stories and an attic. She was called the most skillful needlewoman in the city, and there is a tradition that before Washington became commander-in-chief, she embroidered ruffles for his shirts—quite an important branch of fine sewing in those days. Whether she ever embroidered the great man's ruffles or not, it is said that, whenever ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan

... of money matters, with the title of Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton was an officer on Washington's staff during the Revolution, and had led the Americans over the British redoubts in the last fight at Yorktown. Washington knew him to be as honest and skillful as he was brave, and relied on him greatly. Then he called Thomas Jefferson from Virginia—a very clear-headed man, with many bold ideas—to take charge of any business that might come up with other nations. His title was Secretary of State, and he had a great deal to do, for the governments ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... trouble," said the physician. "The bullet has worked down into the lung and only the most skillful operation can save you, and only one man can do it"—and that man was a surgeon in Bellevue ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... socially desirable is still present. The problem which the teacher faces will be more or less difficult in proportion as the child's endowment by original nature is large or small, and as previous education has been successful or unsuccessful. The skillful teacher is the one who will constantly seek to utilize to the full those instincts or capacities which seem most potent. This utilization, as has already been pointed out, does not mean a blind following of the instinctive tendencies, but often the substitution ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy

... A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived with deliberate care a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents—he ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... the cove. But time did not weigh heavily upon the young troops. As it grew colder and colder they added to the walls and roofs of their improvised shelters. There was scarcely a man among them who had not been bred to the ax, and the forest in the valley rang continually with their skillful strokes. Then the logs were notched and in a day or two rude but real cabins were raised, in which they slept, ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... sides; while ordinary mortals lived in tunnels more or less magnificent where electric light had often to do duty for the sun. Ben declared that his income only admitted light fore and aft, but that with skillful decoration they could at least travesty the sunshine, and so they tried to reproduce its effects by wall hangings of faint yellow and pale green, by chintz-covered bedrooms that seemed to blossom with roses, and living rooms sweet with fresh flowers. There ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... with the reigning monarch was very great, and he was successful, for a time, in reconciling the Danes and the English (SS53, 56). It was said that he established "peace in the kingdom such as had not been known within the memory of man." At the same time the Archbishop, who was himself a skillful mechanic and worker in metals,[1] endeavored to encourage inventive industry and the exportation of products to the Continent. He did everything in his power to extend foreign trade, and it was largely ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... peril, but I was fortunately delivered by a timely and providential interposition. The malignant old gipsy woman and her granddaughter were scared as they watched my sufferings by hearing the sound of travellers approaching. Two wayfarers came along, one of whom happened to be a kind and skillful doctor. He saved my life by ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... reconnoissances and a report as to the proper sites for the erection of fortifications or other defensive works on land and of suitable situations for naval stations. The information which may be expected from a scientific and skillful examination of the whole face of the coast will be eminently useful to Congress when they come to consider the propriety of making appropriations for these great national objects. Proper defenses on land will be necessary for the security and protection of our ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk

... other of our mutual friends, making it plain that he held us all in his affections. I mention his youth, his happiness, his joy with special emphasis for he was stricken with pneumonia a few days later and came so near death that only the most skillful nursing was able to bring him back to health. For two nights his life was despaired of, and when he recovered consciousness it was only to learn that one of his children had died while he himself was at lowest ebb. ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... want of leisure, for few noblemen had so much. All the work I ever did was taking measure, and that only of my greatest and best customers. I scare ever cut a piece of cloth in my life, nor was indeed much more able to fashion a coat than any gentleman in the kingdom. This made a skillful servant too necessary to me. He knew I must submit to any terms with, or ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... no difference of foreground and distance, and events are sometimes hurried on, sometimes left to linger indefinitely. Art, on the contrary, consists in the employment of foresight, and elaboration in arranging skillful and ingenious transitions, in setting essential events in a strong light, simply by the craft of composition, and giving all else the degree of relief, in proportion to their importance, requisite to produce a convincing sense of the special ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... look like a Percy boy, too, but he ain't one to stand bein' wrapped up like a parcels-post package, or for the hissin' act—not when he's in the dark as to what it's all about. He just naturally cuts loose with the rough stuff himself. A skillful squirm or two, and he gets his elbows loose. Then, when he gets a close-up of who's tryin' to snare him, he pushes a snappy left in on ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... is a book not of promise only, but of high achievement. It is original, powerful, artistic, humorous. It places the author at a bound in the rank of those artists to whom we look for the skillful presentation of strong personal impressions of ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... demoralisation of the troops is perhaps as fine a military exploit as any of our early victories. Through the energetic and loyal co-operation of Sir George White, who fought the actions of Elandslaagte and of Rietfontein in order to keep the way open for them, and owing mainly to the skillful guidance of Colonel Dartnell, of the Natal Police, they succeeded in their critical manoeuvre. On October 23rd they were at Beith, on the 24th at Waselibank Spruit, on the 25th at Sunday River, and next morning they marched, sodden with rain, plastered with mud, dog-tired, but in the best ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... near the church, lived Dr. Kent, whose letter has already been referred to. He was a skillful physician, and a very worthy man, who would have been very glad to be benevolent if his limited practice had supplied him with the requisite means. But chance had directed him to a healthy and sparsely-settled neighborhood, where he was able only to earn a respectable ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger

... that I must die unless she let me love her. Not that I was fool enough to think that she would answer me according to my liking, or begin to care about me for a long time yet; if indeed she ever should, which I hardly dared to hope. But that I had heard from men more skillful in the matter that it is wise to be in time, that so the maids may begin to think, when they know that they are thought of. And, to tell the truth, I had bitter fears, on account of her wondrous beauty, lest some young fellow of higher birth and finer parts, and finish, might steal in before poor ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... with its own soul! And what an opportunity,—all the great treasures of the world possessed by people who welcome merchants but "hate to see soldiers"; being themselves "no soldiers at all, only accomplished traders and most skillful artisans." Here was the promised land for Europeans, wretchedly poor, but good soldiers enough. Here was Eldorado, symbol of all external and objective values which so fired the imagination in that age of discovery; ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... fact, an object, and not as a fellow-creature. He neither hates nor loves, he exists for himself alone; the rest of humanity are so many ciphers. The force of his will consists in the imperturbable calculation of his egoism. He is a skillful player who has the human species for an antagonist, and whom he proposes to checkmate... Every time that I heard him talk I was struck with his superiority; it bore no resemblance to that of men informed and cultivated through study and social intercourse, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... be upright and pure and generous, but he also calls him to be intelligent and skillful and ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... Quality, as to have it; and if a Man have it not, it is ten to one but he is discover'd to want it, and then all his Pains and Labour to seem to have it is lost. There is something unnatural in Painting, which a skillful Eye will easily discern from ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... and east, they come in troops to the open fields and the sheltered slope of the hills of our district. But it is scarcely worth while to stop to tell of the skill and perseverance of these destroyer of larvae. We may mention, the woodpecker, however, as a skillful searcher for insects that lie hidden in places where the sun has melted the snow. The carnivorous Coleoptera and the Forficulae are likewise generally in motion during mild winters. Doubtless these last-named do not ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... began to swing as he hung head downward. Among the midshipmen there were not so very many who were skillful at this form of exercise. Jetson was, and he ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock

... the part which Pontiac attempted at the end of the old French War. He tried to unite the Indians in a general uprising against the Americans as Pontiac had united them against the English. He used the same arts, and he showed himself shrewd and skillful in paltering with our leaders till he was ready to strike his blow against them, for he managed to remain in the Ohio country unmolested while he was getting ready to drive the Americans out of it. When the war with Great Britain began, he might very ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... plunged, and realizing the cause of her sudden disappearance the stranger dived with great rapidity at the spot where the golden hair had gone down. His first attempt failed; but as the child partially rose for the second time, he caught the little figure and with skillful hand supported her against his shoulder, as he struck out for the shore, which he reached quickly, but chilled almost to the bone from the ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... prepared and preserved sheets of paper is handed over to the superintendent of the printing office. This office is among the inner buildings of the Bank of France, and is governed by very rigorous rules in all things. The operatives are all picked men, skillful, active, and silent. The sheets, the ink, and the matrixes of the plates are kept securely under lock and key until actually wanted. The printing is effected by steam-worked presses. The ink is blue, and its composition known only to a few of the authorities. An ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... his position, and the solemnity and importance of the question. We regret that we cannot say the same of Dr. Berg, who at times seemed to forget the obligations of the gentleman in his zeal as a controversialist. He is an able and skillful debater, though less logical than Mr. Barker, but he wasted his time and strength too often on personalities and irrelevant matters. His personal inuendoes and epithets, his coarse witticisms, and a bearing that seemed to us more arrogant than Christian, may have suited the vulgar and the ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... state of the art of ship-building in their country. He heard that in England naval carpentry had been reduced to a regular science, and that the forms and models of the vessels built there were determined by fixed mathematical principles, which every skillful and intelligent workman was expected to understand and to practice upon; whereas in Holland the carpenters worked by rote, each new set following their predecessors by a sort of mechanical imitation, without being governed by any ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... Tories who remained in America joined the British army by the thousands or in other ways aided the royal cause. Those who were skillful with the pen assailed the patriots in editorials, rhymes, satires, and political catechisms. They declared that the members of Congress were "obscure, pettifogging attorneys, bankrupt shopkeepers, outlawed smugglers, etc." The people and their leaders they ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... the present convulsion is, then, the state of mind or temper of Germany, including her conception of national greatness, her theory of the State, and her intelligent and skillful use of all the forces of nineteenth century applied science for the destructive purposes of war. It is, therefore, apparent that Europe can escape from the domination of Germany only by defeating her in her present undertakings; and that this defeat can be brought about only by using against her ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... A devoted lad who went with me on all my journeys; a gallant Flemish boy whom I genuinely liked and who returned the compliment; a born stoic, punctilious on principle, habitually hardworking, rarely startled by life's surprises, very skillful with his hands, efficient in his every duty, and despite his having a name that means "counsel," never giving advice— not ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... homemaking as a definite and scientific profession. The school may teach the science, but unless the home shows practical application of the scientific principles, it would be much like teaching agriculture without showing results upon real soil. Skillful teachers recognize the home as a valuable adjunct to their school equipment and are able by wise cooeperation to use it ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... upon the earth and tatter the tents and weary all the travellers. As each of the hours does the work of Time, Time smites him with his nimble sword as soon as his work is done, and the hour falls severed to the dust with his bright wings scattered, as a locust cut asunder by the scimitar of a skillful swordsman. ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... the grounds of Old Fort Mackinaw, sacred in the history of the country. These grounds, now in their natural condition, are unequaled for beauty of surface, location, soil, trees, etc., by any park in any city in the country, and when the skillful hand of the horticulturist has marked its outline and threaded it with avenues and paths, pruned its trees, and carpeted its surface with green, it will present the very perfection of all that makes a park delightful. The character of the soil, ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... the Teutons were gaining, whether because of superior artillery, or because the Rumanians had weakened this front for the sake of the Dobrudja offensive. For each step the Teutons fell back they advanced two. Not unlike a skillful boxer Falkenhayn feinted at one point, then struck hard at another unexpectedly. Without doubt skill and superior knowledge, as well as superior organization, were on the side of the invaders. By the middle of the month the Rumanians were being forced back, both in the Alt and the Jiul valleys, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... a small man, with insignificant, mean-looking features, including a pair of weazel-like eyes and a turn-up nose. It did not require a skillful physiognomist to read his character in his face. Meanness was stamped upon it in ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... of the effluent. "Secondary" treatment plants, after settling out the gross solids, speed up decay by furnishing air to the bacteria that eat up dissolved and finely suspended materials; a good secondary plant, under much more skillful supervision than is usual, can get rid of 85 or 90 percent of the organic materials and the associated B.O.D. by the time it turns its effluent into a stream. How damaging that effluent will be depends on a number ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... burdens of your chairman. To a member of the committee, who is a long-time resident of Washington, Mrs. Gardener, the association is profoundly indebted for constant advice and help, as well as for the most skillful handling of delicate and difficult situations. She has been called the "Diplomatic Corps" of the committee and the name in every good sense has been well won by the important services which she has ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... the habits of the animal which, when well understood, will be found of much service to the inexperienced hunter, and greatly contribute to his success. The best target-shots are not necessarily the most skillful deer-stalkers. One of the great secrets of this art is in knowing how to approach the game without giving alarm, and this can not easily be done unless the hunter sees it before he is himself discovered. There are so many objects in the woods resembling the ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... continues, "the Supreme Being is powerful or skillful, just so far as the telescope shows power, or the microscope shows skill, if his moral law is to be ascertained simply by the physical processes of the animal frame, or his will gathered from the immediate issues of human affairs, if ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... is necessary if the story is to take rank above other stories. The true artist will seek to shape this living substance into the most beautiful and satisfying form, by skillful selection and arrangement of his materials, and by the most direct and appealing presentation of ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... as a Story-teller. To say that Lodge is a skillful as well as a graceful story-teller is, of course, to make an indefensible assertion. In the sixteenth century English fiction was still in its infancy, and English prose was still undeveloped. Yet we do find in Lodge certain qualities ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... deniers for the same purpose which costs 12 sous per livre to those chargeable with the taille." According to Calonne, "if concessions and privileges had been suppressed the vingtiemes would have furnished double the amount." In this respect the most opulent were the most skillful in protecting themselves. "With the intendants," said the Duc d'Orleans, "I settle matters, and pay about what I please," and he calculated that the provincial administration, rigorously taxing him, would cause him to lose 300,000 livres rental. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... into dinner. It required skillful manoeuvering on his part and he never could tell afterward how it happened, but the fact remains that he finally succeeded in extricating her from the mob and started ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... fingers seemed every moment to become more skillful, the livelier the music increased, until the very dishes rattled on the cupboard, as if they wanted to join in. Even the chair looked as ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... often the result of impaired health, while the severe test of maltreatment or even the most skillful treatment, tends to deplete the ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... the grandfather as well. He seemed to have no more anxious thoughts about anything. He did not need to have while Davie stayed at home; but even after Davie went away, and the management of the farm fell for the most part into the less skillful hands of the younger brothers, their grandfather "took things easy," the lads said, and rarely ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson

... can say that I am more than moderately skillful with the sword. It is, possibly, the one hobby of my life. My father and grandfather before me were strong fencers, and one of my earliest recollections is being given a toy foil and put through the parades. There is a saying that "a swordsman is born not made," and ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... any individual composing it; but such is the ferocious treachery of the natives along the coast to the northward, that our utmost circumspection could not save us from having one man (William Blake), severely wounded by them; but by the skillful care bestowed upon him by Dr. Harris, (who accompanied the expedition as a volunteer, and to whom upon this occasion, and throughout the whole course of it, we are indebted for much valuable assistance); I trust his recovery is no ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... when brought face to face with some alien code that we see the need of digging below intuition. A missionary to the South Seas may be confronted with men to whom the killing of other tribesmen and the accumulation of skulls is a glorious and honorable feat, or to whom skillful lying is an enviable and proud accomplishment. But most of us live among neighbors whose conscience is comfortably like our own, and only occasionally become seriously perplexed. In the great mass of everyday occasions ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... did she. Almost single-handed she grappled with the stupendous task of the management of the great ranch, and no "hand," however experienced, was more capable in the most arduous tasks which that management involved. From the skillful organization down to the roping and branding of a wild two-year-old steer there was no one who understood the business of stock-raising better than she. She loved it—it was the very essence ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... bring forward anything. It seems to me that the current sets strongly against their continuance in office, and that, between the hearty Reformers on one side and the out-spoken Conservatives on the other, they must soon surrender their semblance of power. Still, they are skillful in playing off one extreme against another, and may thus endure or be endured a year longer; but the probability is against this. To my mind, it seems clear that their retirement is essential to the prosecution of Liberal Reforms. So long as they remain in power, they will do, in the way of the ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... He was a skillful man with horses, and had never liked an automobile half as much. He loved all animals and they seemed to love him too. At the present time his pets consisted of a small woolly dog, an angora cat, a parrot, ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene

... wholly lacking. The differences in question could not have been appreciated at that remote period, and interest the common observer but little even today. The history of most of the cultivated plants is very obscure, [66] and even the most skillful historians, by sifting the evidence afforded by the older writers, and that obtained by comparative linguistic investigations have been able to do little more than frame the most general outline of the cultural history of the most common and most ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... mind that hygienic living requires nothing more than the application of the same intelligence and practical common sense to the care of the body that the skillful mechanic applies to an efficient, but delicate, machine. And, just as in the case of the machine, care of the body keeps its efficiency at the maximum and lengthens the period that it may be used. This end and aim of hygienic living ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... the most delicate, lovely threads that she could find, but while she wove these beautiful threads she was thinking of her revenge and other evil and wicked thoughts, while her skillful and swift fingers ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber

... is a singer of astonishing spirit, and his sudden changes from one theme to another are sometimes almost startling. He is a skillful ventriloquist, also, and I remember one in particular who outwitted me completely. He was rehearsing a well-known strain, but at the end there came up from the bushes underneath a querulous call. At first I took it for granted that some other bird was in the underbrush; but the note was repeated ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... skillful workman in many ways. One of the first things he did to make himself famous was to build a maze. It had so many winding walks and crooked paths that anyone who walked in ten steps without a guide ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd

... ã€ç¬¬ä¸ƒç« 】å­æ›°ã€å›å­è€Œä¸ä»è€…有矣夫ã€æœªæœ‰å°äººè€Œä»è€…也。 CHAP. VI. Nan-kung Kwo, submitting an inquiry to Confucius, said, 'I was skillful at archery, and Ao could move a boat along upon the land, but neither of them died a natural death. Yu and Chi personally wrought at the toils of husbandry, and they became possessors of the kingdom.' The Master made no reply; but when Nan-kung Kwo went out, he said, 'A superior man ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge

... which Jasper, by skillful management of all conversational topics, allowed no chance word of business to intrude, old Mr. King and he started for the publishing house of D. Marlowe & Co., Jasper filling up all gaps that might suggest time for certain questions that seemed to be trembling on the ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney

... horror I could not but share Grantline's obvious admiration. Three of four other men were watching. The girls were amazingly skillful, no doubt of that. There was not a man among us who could have handled that gravity-platform indoors, not one who would have had the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... victims become drowsy and fall easily into the mood of the most extravagant speaker. Minor operations, under which head we may include the extraction of a tooth or a bank balance, are then simple, if the operator be calm and skillful in the handling of his instruments—often mere words, but powerful tools ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... Under her skillful nursing—skillful, not from experience, but simply from her faith, whence came both conscience of and capacity for doing what the doctor told her—things went well. It is from their want of this faith, and their consequent arrogance ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... of the yet unsullied gown; in the days when the path is doubtful, and the wanderer knowing naught of life comes with bewildered soul to the many-branching roads—then I made myself your adopted child. You took at once into the bosom of another Socrates my tender years; your rule, applied with skillful disguise, straightens each perverse habit; nature is molded by reason, and struggles to be subdued, and assumes under your hands its plastic lineaments. Ay, well I mind how I would wear away long summer suns with you, and pluck ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... O.N. faerr, safe, well, in proper condition, originally applied to a way that was in proper condition or a sea that was safe, e.g., Petlandsfjoerethr var eigi faerr, the Pentland Firth was not safe, could not be crossed. Norse for also has this same meaning, also means "handy, skillful," finally "strong, well-built." Dan., Sw. foer, able. So in Dunbar, 258, 51. Sometimes ...
— Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch • George Tobias Flom

... obtained in this way, in getting a position as an operator. At that time all messages were read from rolls of paper, on which the Morse characters were indented; but Andrew Carnegie, while still under twenty-one, was the first operator in the world to demonstrate, that to a skillful man the roll was unnecessary. He learned to read by sound then, as all operators do now. What scholar will say that a high order of intellect was not involved in ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... was great. Nearly all were sick and half famished, and they could present no resistance. After very anxious deliberation, it was decided that, since the man who committed the theft was young and strong, and a skillful cobbler, whose services could not be dispensed with, they would by stratagem save his life, and substitute for him a poor old bedrid weaver, who was not only useless to them, but a burden. This economical arrangement ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... man's imagination can overstep the reality. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work. I knew from the first that, if I could not do my work as well as any of the rest, I could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon became at least as expeditious and as skillful with my hands as either of the other boys. Though perfectly familiar with them, my conduct and manners were different enough from theirs to place a space between us. They, and the men, always spoke of me as 'the young gentleman.' A certain man ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... deny that you are correct," the attorney said musingly; "and they may have been two distinct individuals, Carroll evidently being the guilty party; but even in that event, in my opinion, he was only carrying out with a skillful hand the plans already arranged ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... against it a swinging table had been elevated, an immaculate cover laid, and the yacht's china, marked in cobalt with the name Gar, placed in a polished and formal order. Halvard's service from the stove to the table was as silent and skillful as his housing of the sails; he replaced the hot dishes with cold, and provided a glass ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer

... the skillful financial management of the institution during these critical times is due to the secretary and treasurer, Mr. James B. Johnson, who was a potent factor in the early struggles of the institution. He was secretary and treasurer for many years, dying while ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... male snake, seemed to be women's counsellor from the beginning, making her skillful in cunning and tergiversation, it is fair to suppose that they were destined to commune with the spirit of evil for ever and ever, that is if women have souls and are immortal, which is thought to ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... is an instrument of music, with which a skillful player can make such melodious and heart-inflaming music, that all who hear him play can scarcely hold from dancing; and yet behold the cymbal hath not life, neither comes the music from it, but because ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... at once and retire to his estate. "But he has no estate," the commander ventured. "Then give him one!" thundered the despot, whose word was law, and the man gained more by his blunders than he could have done by years of the most skillful service. ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger

... white, painfully clean, carbolic-smelling ward, attended by the most skillful doctors in England and by the grave and silent nurses, who, notwithstanding their lives of stress and toil, had not lost the capacity for pity and sympathy. Indeed, no one with a heart in her bosom could stand up unmoved and hear ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... merit. Perhaps the earliest of these was David Cusick, who, in 1825, printed his Ancient History of the Six Nations. He was a full blood Tuscarora, and his English is far from correct. Yet the arrangement of his matter is skillful, and some passages quaintly vivid and forcible. Another member of the Iroquois confederacy, Peter Dooyentate Clarke, has taken up the Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandotts, and has made a readable little book (published at Toronto, 1870); while still more lately, Chief ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton

... words uttered by the passer-by, and who has not caught one of those numberless sayings which, according to Rabelais, hang frozen in the air? But the majority of men take their way through Paris in the same manner as they live and eat, that is, without thinking about it. There are very few skillful musicians, very few practiced physiognomists who can recognize the key in which these vagrant notes are set, the passion that prompts these floating words. Ah! to wander over Paris! What an adorable and delightful existence is that! To saunter is a science; it is the gastronomy of the eye. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... rule I could go to sleep watchin' the best three-ball carom game ever played; but durin' this contest I holds the marker's stick and never misses a move. First off Pinckney plays about as skillful as a trained pig practicin' on the piano; but after four or five minutes of punk exhibition he takes a brace and ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... became worked up. She handled them pretty much the same as a skillful speaker does things at a political meeting or an evangelist at a revival. The same spirit was there. Instead of a flag, there was the tribal pole. There was the old gag of their nation or tribe being the chosen one. I don't care where you go, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... trousers, and little black caps—and with their flags flying, drums beating, and band playing, they march to the parade-ground, where they give a fine exhibition drill. After the parade they are trained in various difficult and skillful ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... the same question to him what he wanted to learn in the world. "I don't know yet," he replied. "Then come with me, and be an astronomer; there is nothing better than that, for nothing is hid from you." He liked the idea, and became such a skillful astronomer that when he had learnt everything, and was about to travel onwards, his master gave him a telescope and said to him, "With that you canst thou see whatsoever takes place either on earth or in heaven, and nothing ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... guide and tracker, a wiry old Mangyan native who seemed to have an instinct for finding a 'timarau' trail and following it where my less skillful eyes could see nothing but undisturbed forest, and who also seemed to have absolutely no fear, a thing which was even more remarkable than his skill, since the natives as a general thing are notably timid about getting in the way of an angry 'timarau.' As a matter ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme

... arms were assembling from different directions, and the Tories soon saw that unless they passed Colonel Moore they would be surrounded and captured. McDonald was an old and skillful officer, and he moved across the Cape Fear River to meet Colonel Caswell, who was coming up from New Bern with a command of eight hundred men which had been ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... The less skillful builders sometimes depart from their usual habit, and take up with the abandoned nest of some other species. The blue jay now and then lays in an old crow's nest or cuckoo's nest. The crow blackbird, seized with a fit of indolence, drops its eggs in the cavity ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... of Medicine by Dr. Dudley, in 1828, he thus wrote of the trephine: "The experience which time and circumstances have afforded me in injuries of the head induced me to depart from the commonly received principles by which surgeons are governed in the use of the trephine. In skillful hands the operation, beyond the atmosphere of large cities, is neither dangerous in its consequences nor difficult in the execution." In this remark Dr. Dudley bore early testimony to the efficacy of aseptic ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell

... rather shamefacedly, and they sat together on the dusty veranda and talked. He had been well, he said, but he was far from looking so. His face was gray and drawn, his lips were pale, and his long skillful surgeon's hands looked inert and weary. When he walked, he had the effect of dragging his feet ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... platform, checked with Control Tower, and eased up for the final descent. He was a skillful pilot, with many landings on Venus to his credit. He brought the ship up on its tail and sat it down on the landing platform for a perfect three-pointer as the ...
— The Native Soil • Alan Edward Nourse

... great intellectual power, and if they are not strictly honest, as much may be said of the greatest diplomats who have played conspicuous parts in the field of diplomacy during the last century. They may sacrifice men, and castles, etc., as skillful players do chessmen, with no particle of feeling for the pieces lost, for equivalents, etc. Nevertheless, nothing can be finally consummated without the concurrence of all the co-ordinate branches of both governments, and the acquiescence of the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... felt a great repugnance for that sharpers' and skinflints' business; but he yielded to please Amparito, and set up his office and took an assistant who was very skillful in legal tricks. Caesar was often to be found writing in the office, when Amparito ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... therefore allowed the occurrence to be forgotten till the proper moment of her revenge arrived, when she gave a supper, and invited to her board eighteen young and handsome Venetian nobles. Upon the preparation of this repast she bestowed all the resources of her skillful and exquisite knowledge; and the result was, the Venetians were so felicitously poisoned that they had just time to listen to a speech from the charming and ingenious lady of the house before expiring. In this address ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... frigate leaving the roads, he could not refrain from rubbing his hands, saying to himself, "Faith it is not that I am vain and boastful, but I would only have given this mission in a hundred to the most skillful of men—to unravel the projects of the English envoy, to conquer the scruples of the duke, to aid him to revenge himself on a guilty wife, to tear him by force of eloquence from the overwhelming feelings this conjugal accident has roused in his soul, to bring him ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... directing his division through every peril, and finally conducting it, without material loss, but with increased confidence in itself and in its leader, to the new base which had been selected for the army. His cool and confident bearing, and his skillful conduct throughout this campaign, won for him the brevet of Lieutenant Colonel in the regular army and the rank of Major ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson

... Enchanter's Nightshade. But of the mandrake, or mandragoras, Gerarde says: 'There hath been many ridiculous tales brought up of this plant, whether of old wives, or some runagate surgeons, or physickemongers, I know not; but sure some one or more that sought to make themselves famous or skillful above others were the first brochers of the errour'—that the root resembles a man. 'They add further,' he says, 'that it is never, or very seldome, to be found growing naturally, but under a gallowes, where the matter that hath fallen from the dead body hath given it the shape of ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... assure you; for they all fell to work as busy as bees, flying and buzzing about with much laughter as they worked their pleasant miracle. Mr. Chrome acted more like the father of a large family than a crusty bachelor, Miss Kent's skillful fingers flew as they never did before, and Mrs. Smith trotted up and down as briskly as if she were sixteen instead of being a ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... to its nature as the inculcation of political opinions, must, if he hopes to succeed, make the story suggest the lesson without conveying it obtrusively. Above all is there need of delicate touch and skillful handling, if the aim be to affect those who are prejudiced against the views expressed, or whose interests are involved in the fate of those attacked. But Cooper's was never a delicate touch. What he thought he never insinuated; what he believed himself he never allowed to make its ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... just finisht it, and is content. According to the consecrated expression, it is "certain to go." But as he is cautious, he does not rely entirely upon his own opinion. He consults his friends—fellow-workers, skillful as he, successful as he. He reads to them his piece. I will not say that they are satisfied—another word is needed—but at any rate, with more reason than ever, it ...
— How to Write a Play - Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, - Labiche, Legouve, Pailleron, Sardou, Zola • Various

... nominally divided it from B—— was a mere boundary line. As men had multiplied upon this spot of earth, needing land for dwelling and business, envious eyes had been cast upon the Field, the last large "undeveloped" tract anywhere near the great city. Men who were skillful in such real estate "deals," greedy and ingenious in the various ways of turning civic growth to private profit, were figuring upon the possibility of getting hold of Clark's Field, when the short leases expired, and after making ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... him. His cheeks were flushed, his lips compressed, his eyes glared with frenzy. Bending eagerly from his window, he shouted words of encouragement to the assassins. Grasping a gun, in the handling of which he had become very skillful from long practice in the chase, he watched, like a sportsman, for his prey; and when he saw an unfortunate Protestant, wounded and bleeding, flying from his pursuers, he would take deliberate aim from the window of ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... affected muscles is treating only the result of the disease without considering the cause, and is therefore useless. The operation of extirpating the collapsed cartilage and vocal cord is believed to be the only relief, and, as this operation is critical and can be performed only by the skillful veterinarian, it will not ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... very skillful diversion, but Elizabeth had reached the point of utter desperation. And on the way into the living room unquestionably she would be able to divert Terry to something else. Vance ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... Evil."—A vice that has become so great an evil, even in these enlightened times, as to defy the most skillful legislation, which openly displays its gaudy filthiness and mocks at virtue with a lecherous stare, must have its origin in causes too powerful to ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... handled so smoothly and swiftly. A dash of the picturesque was added to the scene by the Algerian ration-bearers winding their way in and out of the wagons, carrying trays of hot food on their heads and shoulders. It was nothing short of marvelous, the skillful manner in which they carried their precious burden of food, for never did they have a spill unless ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... these early experiments, but he was a skillful administrator and knew that there was little hope for any fundamental social change in the naval service without the active cooperation of the Navy's high-ranking officers. His meeting with Admiral King ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... grateful generations; a name, too, which has so resounded in the popular literature of the day. Then, there were the Jacksons, famous in mechanics and in two of the learned professions; Charles Jackson, the erudite and upright judge, and James Jackson, one of those skillful and truly benevolent physicians, whose memory is still in the hearts of many surviving patients. The Tyngs, too, resided there, long honorably connected with colonial history and still represented by descendants of national repute. Amongst ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... closely. He was unconscious, but not pulseless; he had evidently been strong enough to open the door for air or succor, but had afterward fallen in a fit on the couch. She flew to her father's locker and the galley fire, returned, and shut the door behind her, and by the skillful use of hot water and whisky soon had the satisfaction of seeing a faint color take the place of the faded rouge in the ghastly cheeks. She was still chafing his hands when he slowly opened his eyes. With a start, he made a quick ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... to be one of the most eventful of Elizabeth's school year. She did not plan to go home for Thanksgiving. The Saturday previous she received a box from her mother. It was filled with all the good things a mother's heart could devise and a cook's skillful hands make ready. Miss Wilson carried the news of the arrival ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... belonged to a very large family, which was increasing rapidly; indeed, the gray parrots of Africa, with their magnificent crimson tails, are the chief glory of the country. The children of my grandfather were very numerous, and no father was kinder or more skillful than he in providing them with an independent establishment, for he believed that young people should always set up housekeeping for themselves as soon as possible. As soon, therefore, as my father was old enough to be married, and grandpa saw that he had already selected ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... seem that at such a moment a skillful general would take advantage of such a little success, and follow it up, especially when he had spent as much time in preparation as had Patterson, by a series of crushing blows, if anything could ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... to be good and kind and intelligent and industrious and skillful, so that you may be fitted to guide and adorn a home should you be blessed with one, or to be fitted to shape your life to usefulness and independence if you never have a home of your own, and if in connection with these aims you seek to obtain and preserve ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett

... be an absurdity—but had laid out a small corner of the universe, as a dwelling place for Adam and Eve, there were some subtle creatures in space, which Jehovah had not formed, was not capable of forming. They were the work of several other demiurges, older and more skillful. His craft was not beyond that of a very clever potter, capable of kneading clay beings in the manner of pots, such as we men are now. What I say is not to slight him, because such work is ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... from the subject to dwell upon the task they had set for themselves, a thought which did not exclude St. Luc, though the chevalier now appeared in the guise of a bold and skillful foe, with whom they must match their wisdom and courage. Doubtless he had formed a new band, and, at the head of it, was already roaming the country south of the St. Lawrence. Well, if that were the case perhaps they would meet ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... bull pursue; Unerring aim, the skillful Custer drew. The wounded beast turns madly in despair And man and horse are lifted high in air. The conscious steed needs not the guiding rein; Back with a bound and one quick cry of pain He springs, and ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... the stormy sea, the interminable wars, the rash expeditions. Wherefore, Gaspar de San Agustin says: "Although anciently there were in this town of Dumangas many people, in the course of time they have very greatly diminished because the natives are the best sailors and most skillful rowers on the whole coast, and so the governors in the port of Iloilo take most of the people from this town for the ships that they send abroad ............. When the Spaniards reached this island (Panay) it is said that there were on it more than fifty thousand families; but ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal

... that it was most unexpected, Leonidas. You have matched my victory with one of yours. It was indeed most skillful and I don't yet see ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the graceful and harmonious curves produced, when, wielded by some trained and skillful hand, the pen becomes an instrument of beauty. As by the power of speech, men may pass from the common tone of conversation up to the melodious strains of music, or may soar in flights of oratory into the sublime, until the multitude ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... punishment. They were profuse in expressions of loyally to church and state, in passages sometimes sounding ludicrously hollow, sometimes conveying the most biting mockery and satire, and again in words hardly to be distinguished from the heartfelt language of devotion. They became skillful at hinting, and masters of the art of innuendo. They attacked Christianity under the name of Mahometanism, and if they had occasion to blame French ministers of state, would seem to be satirizing the viziers of Turkey. Politics and theology ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... very lucky for the twins that their father was such a brave and skillful kyak man. You will see the reason why, when I tell you the story of the day Menie and Koko went hunting alone on ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... industry. For this the hook and line are often used; some also use the spoon hook. But it is a common practice among them to kill the fish with bow and arrow, and in this they are quite skillful. One morning some boys brought me a bass, weighing perhaps sis pounds, which one of them had shot ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley

... of our own century will readily be convinced that there are not as much extravagance in the claim as a cursory glance at the figures would indicate. Europe alone loses between eighteen, and twenty million, as estimated by the most skillful statisticians. Since the time of the legendary Trojan War (three thousand years), it is supposed by good authority that one billion two hundred thousand of human, beings have lost their lives by the hazard of war, not all in actual battle alone, but by ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... they all want something." Mr. Young shrugged his shoulder expressively, and by a skillful manipulation of his lips shifted his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other without raising his hands. "But it ain't money. I guess he's got a notion that later on the labour unions'll send him to the United States Senate some day. He's no slouch, either, when it comes ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... get them," said the cunning Monkey, "but you are much more skillful at such things than I am. Pull them out and ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop

... gift, the lyre, With skillful hand to sweep each wire, I'd pour my burning thoughts in song, In lays deep, passionate and strong, Till heart should thrill at every word As mind is thrilled at song of bird! Oh, I would die and leave ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... no good roads by which they could travel comfortably from place to place, and no wheeled carriages. They lived in castles, very strongly built indeed, and very grand and picturesque sometimes in external appearance, but very illy furnished and comfortless within. The artisans were skillful in fabricating splendid caparisons for the horses, and costly suits of glittering armor for the men, and the architects could construct grand cathedrals, and ornament them with sculptures and columns which are ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... fire. And when she cools down a month after, and I got to strip her, there was a hole in the yearth, and a spring o' bilin', scaldin' water pourin' out of it ez big as your waist. And right in the middle of it was this yer." He rose with the instinct of a skillful raconteur, and whisked from under his bunk a chamois leather bag, which he emptied on the table before them. It contained a small fragment of native rock crystal, half-fused upon a petrified bit of pine. It was so glaringly truthful, so really what it purported to be, that the most ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... time, and place the result before us as an actual existence. It has been the high privilege of the English realistic school, which we may call without hesitation the school of Dickens, that it has been the first to strike the key-note with a firm and skillful hand. Its excellence would stand out with undimmed lustre had it not, as its gloomy background, the French school of Victor Hugo and Balzac, that opposite of "the poetry of despair," as Goethe calls it. Here again, in this new English ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... the cook, into the jolly-boat, with orders to keep as close as possible to himself. Both boats had sails, and both were so arranged as to row in calms, or head-winds. We took in rather more than our share of provisions and water, having two skillful caterers in the chief-mate and cook; and, having obtained a compass, quadrant, and a chart, for our portion of the indispensables, all hands were ready for a start, in about two hours after ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... smaller spars which were absolutely requisite in spreading the canvas that would be needed in facilitating her flight. Wilder turned from the sight with a sickening apprehension; for he well knew that these were the preparations that skillful mariners are wont to make, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... distressing and fatal diseases; and that, as a medicine, it is rarely needful, and never used, even medicinally, with entire confidence. This loathsome weed, then, should not be used, even medicinally, except in extreme cases, and then in the hands of a skillful physician. For every man—and especially for every boy, who has hardly entered his teens—to take this poison into his own hands, and determine for himself how much he will use, is as preposterous, as if he were to take upon himself to deal out ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler

... skillful in handling the boat, a form of knowledge in which even Grant was proficient. It was for this reason largely that Pete had selected Fred and John to ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay

... were: "Look out for Unktomi, my son, he is deceitful and treacherous." "I'll look out for him, father;" so saying he disappeared over a hill. On the way he tried his skill on several hawks and eagles and he did not need to use his painted arrows to kill them, but so skillful was he with the bow and arrows that he could bring down anything that flew with his common arrows. He was drawing near to the end of his destination when he had a large tract of timber to pass through. When he had nearly gotten through the timber ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin

... were; but the captain relying more upon Jan's opinion, and wishing to accomplish half a masterpiece, by going into Falmouth in the dark, and surprising the people there to whom the ship was consigned, and so to pass hereafter as a good and skillful captain, insisted upon sailing in, and so they went in, as has been mentioned. It is no part of the business of a good seaman to run into a place by night, or when it is dark, where he is not well acquainted; ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... confronted the new President was appalling: the larger part of the South in open rebellion, the rest of the slaveholding States wavering preparing to follow; the revolt guided by determined, daring, and skillful leaders; the Southern people, apparently full of enthusiasm and military spirit, rushing to arms, some of the forts and arsenals already in their possession; the government of the Union, before the accession of the new President, in the hands ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... riding the crest of the waves, the next wallowing in the trough of the sea, moved away bravely though every moment it seemed in imminent danger of capsizing. It took skillful handling by Captain Glenn — the only man not at the oars — to keep the ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... he went on, waving the piece of sterile platinum wire with which he had been transferring drops of liquid in his search for germs, "was a much more skillful bacteriologist than I thought, evidently. No, the trouble does not seem to be from germs breathed in, or from germs at all—it is from some kind of germ-free toxin that has been ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... the girls "got busy," but they were tired with the long drive and everything seemed to go wrong. Their usually skillful fingers fumbled, the tire was "too big or too little or something," to quote Amy, and at the end of a quarter of an hour's useless struggle their tempers were worn to a frazzle and ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope

... train and on the passage there is the same skillful attention—the same ungrudging kindness. You see new faces in the bunks beside you. After the tedium of the narrow confines of a ward that in itself is ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... The good parson was skillful in adapting Scripture to special exigencies, and throughout the Revolution he astonished his hearers by the peculiar fitness of his texts to political uses. It is related of him that when his eldest daughter married Richard Cranch, he preached to his people ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... convincing evidence. Then again his conduct toward the Princess Eboli in the love scene is very singular,—one might say amazing. And there are some other such defects, which concern the stage more than the reader and which, by skillful acting and judicious excision, can be reduced to insignificant proportions. When well played 'Don Carlos' produces a powerful impression. For the reader it is a noble poem containing a large ingredient of Schiller's ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... my analysis and explication of the agreeableness of those same parlors, comes the growing grace,—their homeliness. By 'homeliness' I mean not ugliness, as the word is apt to be used, but the air that is given to a room by being really at home in it. Not the most skillful arrangement can impart ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... retired; he planned a counter blow, and wished to learn just what were the conditions at the Chief Black Fish town of Little Chillicothe on the Little Miami River: whether it was on guard, whether the warriors had left to strike at another point, and so forth. That called for skillful work. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... blamed the Dutch for his setback, and determined to punish them. Moreover, the Dutch represented everything to which he was opposed, for Holland was a republic, the keen rival of France in trade, and Protestant in religion. By skillful diplomacy he persuaded England and Sweden to stand aloof, while his armies entered Holland and drew near to Amsterdam At this critical moment William, Prince of Orange, became the Dutch leader. He was a descendant of that William the Silent, who, a century before, had saved the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... Solon's displeasure, the actors went on playing, and soon the best poets began to write works for the stage. The actors became more and more skillful, and had many spectators, although no women were allowed on the stage, their parts being ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber



Words linked to "Skillful" :   skilful, nice, good, adept, expert, skillfulness, practiced



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