1
as in agility
ease and grace in physical activity
the effortless deftness with which he plays the piano
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in skill
subtle or imaginative ability in inventing, devising, or executing something
with deftness and aplomb she managed to keep the bickering relatives apart for the duration of the reception
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Recent Examples of deftness
Harbaugh balances building confidence and holding players accountable with the deftness of a violin virtuoso.
—
Daniel Popper, New York Times, 8 Jan. 2026
Daniel Popper, New York Times, 8 Jan. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for deftness
Noun
-
Duah has rare quickness and agility.—
Tom Krasovic,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
11 Feb. 2026
-
Doing high-impact exercise on a very hard surface Building power with jumping exercises and plyometrics can support bone density and agility, sparing you from a life-altering fall.—
Erica Sloan,
SELF,
10 Feb. 2026
Noun
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Using skills, Codex can pull design assets from Figma, manage bug tracking and releases in Linear, deploy applications to cloud platforms such as Vercel and Cloudflare, and generate images using OpenAI’s image model.—
Neetika Walter,
Interesting Engineering,
5 Feb. 2026
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Kate had changed her hair into a stylish bob — but apparently hadn’t updated her mothering skills — two years later when, in the sequel, Kevin again was discovered missing, at the Miami airport.—
Jocelyn Noveck,
Mercury News,
5 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Deftness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/deftness. Accessed 15 Feb. 2026.
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