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deft
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  • He stepped off his board onto a boulder, and deftly climbed to a spot that lay shadowed in the setting sun.   (source)
  • His head bent over the guitar, his fingers deft, the music a language both mysterious and beautiful, would move David to tears.   (source)
    deft = skillful
  • I watch his feet move to the center of the room, and his hands, steady as they accept the knife from Marcus, are deft as one presses the knife into the other.†   (source)
  • Treena leaned across and began slicing at Granddad's plate with deft strokes.†   (source)
  • If he moved quickly, this impending disaster could be deftly sidestepped.†   (source)
  • Mom took the CD, dug down in her purse for a moment, gave Mrs. Billups a five-dollar bill, and deftly snapped the disc in half.†   (source)
  • Lupin caught them all deftly, then moved into the room, staring at Black, who still had Crookshanks lying Protectively across his chest.†   (source)
  • Never taking her eyes off her phone, she deftly navigated around the edge of the room, avoiding people and chairs, and sat in her usual spot.†   (source)
  • She corralled the long sweep of her hair in deftly and knotted it before going inside.†   (source)
  • With a clawlike hand she pushed the hat up on Mrs Whatsit's forehead, untangled the stole from the tree, and with a deft gesture took the sheet and folded it.†   (source)
  • Observing that the Christ Child's nose was running, she deftly wiped it; then she held the handkerchief in place, while instructing him to "blow."†   (source)
  • I guess she's grown deft at hiding her feelings.†   (source)
  • Or are you as deft at handling your sword as Captain Westfall?†   (source)
  • His fingers were deft and strangely tender.†   (source)
  • A Sentinel tosses him a handgun, and he catches it deftly, putting a finger to the trigger.†   (source)
  • Sometimes he decided that a yam was too big to be sown as one seed and he split it deftly along its length with his sharp knife.†   (source)
  • " Inside, the butchers with their blood-stained white smocks deftly gutted the fish while customers cried out their orders and shouted, "Give me your freshest," to which the butchers always protested, "All are freshest.†   (source)
  • He was a deft hand, the grandfather, that was certain.†   (source)
  • He gets up and, without disturbing Tess, deftly pulls a roll of white wraps from her pocket.†   (source)
  • If I had not ceded control of the wheel, and if he had not assumed control of the vessel so deftly, I'm sure I'd be dead.†   (source)
  • In one deft motion she plucked the wool from the teeth and rolled it into a fluffy ball.†   (source)
  • She raised the scissors and deftly cut the pants leg open.†   (source)
  • He stepped sideways and disappeared deftly into the angriness around him.†   (source)
  • His mom sat so that Eleanor could see, then deftly drew a line along Park's eyelashes.†   (source)
  • 'Now, we should celebrate,' enthused Artemis, deftly changing the subject.†   (source)
  • When he flicked his brush, his deftness was practiced and reflexive, weirdly unsettling.†   (source)
  • Without any preliminaries, he picked up the cat, turned him over on his back, deftly held his head and paws and began the lesson.†   (source)
  • January 21 then deftly passes the puck to his teammate December 20, wow!†   (source)
  • With a few deft movements, he made a noose and slipped it over the dragon's head as it explored the snowy clumps surrounding the tree.†   (source)
  • Deftly she squeezed the flour through it, then with her left hand sprinkling water, she formed the dough.†   (source)
  • At the last instant I deftly sidestepped him with a bullfighter's grace, and he blasted past me, then circled back and goosed me from behind with his nose.†   (source)
  • The bald man behind the bar gathered up the coins and deftly poured wine into Skarpi's wide clay cup.†   (source)
  • She deftly rolled the hems a few times so I could stand.†   (source)
  • He knew its flaws, its many flaws, but believed that with a lot of deft dredging and sculpting, the park could be transformed into a landscape unlike any that had ever seated an exposition.†   (source)
  • He studied the house, figured I was the reason for his discomfort, waited until I was walking across the yard, and lifted my kneecap as deftly as a surgeon.†   (source)
  • Father, his jeweler's glass in his eye, was bent over the shoulder of the newest apprentice, deftly selecting an infinitesimal part from the array before them on the workbench.†   (source)
  • The woman deftly plucks out the few she needs, and then presses into Orleanna's hand a gift: the tiny wooden okapi, perfectly carved.†   (source)
  • There had been friends — although not exactly the same ones he'd had before going on the wagon — some laughs, fellow faculty members who admired his deft touch in the classroom and his private dedication to writing.†   (source)
  • "You were the one who said not to bother changing him back—" Deftly he caught the pack as she swung it.†   (source)
  • The skipper eased her deftly away from the dock with gentle engine commands and strains on his lines that his quartermaster could only admire.†   (source)
  • —he displayed deft skills as a bureaucratic obstructionist that further belied his reputation as a simpleton.†   (source)
  • Florentino Ariza tried to help her unfasten her stays, but she anticipated him with a deft maneuver, for in five years of matrimonial devotion she learned to depend on herself in all phases of love, even the preliminary stages, with no help from anyone.†   (source)
  • I see the quick, deft ones who are the very best.†   (source)
  • I can deft the bosses as long as they deb us.†   (source)
  • I sink into a chair at their table, order a gin fizz at the waiter's suggestion, and concentrate on Dutchy's fingers, which I can see from where I'm sitting, deftly skimming the piano keys.†   (source)
  • After a moment of deftly fingering the attachments in the back, the bra fell apart.†   (source)
  • And so, still clutching the hunk of bread, he drew his feet out of his valenki, deftly leaving inside them his foot rags and spoon, crawled barefoot up to his bunk, widened a little hole in the mattress, and there, amidst the sawdust, concealed his half-ration.†   (source)
  • Let's enjoy these aimless days while we can, I told myself, I fearing some kind of deft acceleration.†   (source)
  • Mr. Dark saw a crescent moon on the bullet, saw nothing wrong with such a moon, rammed it in the rifle, slapped the rifle back at Will's father, who once more caught it deftly.†   (source)
  • Tom had Rimrock turning on a dime, in deft little white-socked steps, so he was always facing the circling thoroughbred.†   (source)
  • She performs these tasks with amazing deftness, as if she does them all the time.†   (source)
  • While Adam mastered land navigation through the woods, Kelley memorized grocery store aisles for quick in-and-out missions; as he skillfully blew up an enemy bunker, she deftly changed a "blown-out" diaper; he evaded a mock enemy, while she dodged projectile vomit.†   (source)
  • I picked Schwarz up, and in one deft movement, plunked her down into the hollow of my drum, grabbing up my drumsticks in exchange, slapping the lid down, shifting the drum in front of me, and then as the mother cat jerked around and caught sight of me and then of my drum, which was meowing furiously, I brought down a loud, distracting drum-roll: BARRA BARRA BARRA BOOM BOOM!†   (source)
  • With swift deft fingers, Mother removes the live chicks first, placing them in her apron.†   (source)
  • Before total darkness, he had skinned them, deftly cutting meat from their sides.†   (source)
  • But that appeared to be all she would tell me, as now she'd grabbed a nail file from the mug stuffed with pens and pencils and was at work on a pinkie, shaping it deftly.†   (source)
  • "Anytime," the skipper called back, and I could make out his sly smile as he deftly coiled the rope.†   (source)
  • He pulled the boot back on and sat for a moment with the money palmed between his index and middle finger and then with a deft cardflip shot the folded bills under Faustino's knee.†   (source)
  • She was peeling potatoes with them and handled a knife as deftly as a trapper.†   (source)
  • And, having made a bed in the cradle from some folded covers, he lifted the baby with strange deftness and placed it in.†   (source)
  • With swift, deft movements, he unlocked the door and stepped inside.†   (source)
  • He would pretend at first not to see us, but with the deftness of a cat he would catch the ball and say, "Put your minds where your behinds are, and I'll let you on my team."†   (source)
  • The team at the pediatric intensive care unit was quick and deft, and had John in bed in an instant, but Serena overheard one of the doctors on duty say over the phone to her boss, "He's all neck and bones!"†   (source)
  • What are the odds that the first boy, so deftly primed for success, will somehow fail?†   (source)
  • Milo made a deft grimace of tribulation and turned away.†   (source)
  • She was not squeamish, though, and deftly caught spewings that were sometimes babies, sometimes monsters.†   (source)
  • As the game started, Sarah whizzed past Jesse with the ball, passing it deftly to another girl, who ran alongside her.†   (source)
  • Lucien shuffled the deck and deftly dealt ten cards to Lonny and the same to himself.†   (source)
  • When the confused First Lady asks the president to explain, he deftly changes the subject.†   (source)
  • They are quick of hearing and sharp-eyed, and though they are inclined to be fat and do not hurry unnecessarily, they are nonetheless nimble and deft in their movements.†   (source)
  • A few deft strokes and the picture had been painted, as easily, as confidently as Con had scanned the menu and ordered: "Hamburger.†   (source)
  • He went, with a keen, deft precision, right to my heart.†   (source)
  • Remembering the deft way they'd moved in the fire glow, the tears spilled from my eyes.†   (source)
  • The idea of reconquest was deftly satirized by Jim Lehrer in the 1966 novel Viva Max, made into a film with Peter Ustinov, which imagined a bored Mexican general marching troops to San Antonio and retaking the Alamo.†   (source)
  • Deftly he slit its throat, and as the blood spilled across the table with no ceremonial bowl to catch it, he turned the knife and slid it into the body just below the cartilage at the top of the rib cage.†   (source)
  • He was balancing a plate of cake on top of each cup, setting them down deftly and shoving one toward me as he took his chair.†   (source)
  • It was a clever trick and required a deft hand so as not to spill any of the porridge.†   (source)
  • They would swing their clubs, but the women would either bat the attack away with a deft flip of their stave, or dodge out of the way and answer the attack with a ringing smack to the body.†   (source)
  • That part of the speech was deftly crafted and didn't reveal any harmful details.†   (source)
  • In between strokes, he tossed the flask overboard, and then deftly did the same for each shard of glass.†   (source)
  • The young man flung the chain across and followed it deftly, climbing over the big shape covered with canvas.†   (source)
  • Deftly, he released the bolt on his weapon and let it slam hard into place.†   (source)
  • The verbeeg fighting Drizzt was down on one knee now, the drow having deftly sliced out one of its hamstrings.†   (source)
  • We moved as mutely and as deftly as we could bear, muffling ourselves in one another's hair and neck so as not to wake him, but then, too, of course, so we could hear the sound of his sleeping, his breathing, ours, that strange conspiring.†   (source)
  • Dunwoody had quickly learned that Mr. Barlowe was an enterprising gentleman who generated large streams of revenue and who required an attorney with a creative mind and a deft touch in order to dissuade curious institutional minds from examining his affairs too closely.†   (source)
  • She wound it around her head, deftly, smoothly, and then tied it in place, pulling the knots tight and hard.†   (source)
  • He slipped an empty churn into the stream of skim milk deftly and pulled the full churn away.†   (source)
  • In front of Leamas the two policemen dropped to their knees, peering through, the sandbagged slits, deftly flicking the rapid load on their automatic rifles.†   (source)
  • Her hands seemed even more deft and gentle than usual and she gave him a long, thorough rub before the orderly came and took him to the X ray laboratory.†   (source)
  • "Let me lay this on you," a voice spoke into her ear, "because I just left," and she found being deftly pinned outboard of one breast this big cerise ID badge, reading Hi!†   (source)
  • But these — " and here I deftly extracted some threadlike nematode worms, each ten or more inches in length, from the dissected lungs — "these have been found in men: in fact enough of them will choke a man to death in a very little while."†   (source)
  • When that happened murder was on the way, but cool, deft murder, and hands that worked precisely, delicately.†   (source)
  • His voice took on the syrupy synthetic tones of deepest Dixieland—an accent, though, to my sleep-drugged but responsive ears, that was the product of remarkably deft mimicry.†   (source)
  • ANNIE looks around desperately, sees her purse on the bed, rummages in it, and comes up with a battered piece of cake wrapped in newspaper; with her foot she moves the doll deftly out of the way of HELEN'S groping, and going on her knee she lets HELEN smell the cake.†   (source)
  • Then with several deft strokes, the lighthouse began to appear.†   (source)
  • Helen tied a towel around his neck and began snipping, deftly and rapidly.†   (source)
  • As I started to lower it to the cradle she stepped around me and deftly took it in her left hand.†   (source)
  • If his mother or his grandmother was shopping, the tape which hung around the saleswoman's neck and the carbon pad in which she recorded purchases seemed twitchy and clumsy to Rufus; but in his great-aunt's company, the tape and pad were instruments of fascination and skill, and the housewives who ordinarily made the air of the stores heavy with fret and foolishness were like a challenging sea, instead, which his aunt navigated most deftly.†   (source)
  • As they reached the front room, he seized her deftly as a long black cat and dragged her hanging by the waist round and round him, while he turned in a circle, his face bent down to hers.†   (source)
  • While Maria Beaumont was occupying Reich's attention with her squawking flight, a bright young attorney from Monarch's legal department was deftly decoyed to Mars and held there anonymously on a valid, if antiquated, vice charge.†   (source)
  • During the week, by placing here and there a deft question, he managed to get from Miriam some information about Max.†   (source)
  • But men do call him a right deft hand at quarterstaff.   (source)
  • The tragedy began quietly enough, and like many another talk, by the man's deft assertion of his superiority.   (source)
  • His strong hands continued, deftly pressing like a pulse against the cow.†   (source)
  • The four Alpha Romeos slipped deftly into traffic surrounding St. Peter's Square.†   (source)
  • One of the guys playing Frisbee flipped her the disk; she caught it deftly and flipped it back.†   (source)
  • He deftly unstrung the bow and stored it away, wrapping the case in soft rags to protect it.†   (source)
  • Deftly he adds up our final scores on his pocket computer.†   (source)
  • Scarred, as mine were before the Capitol erased all marks from my skin, but strong and deft.†   (source)
  • So her deft fingers tuck pieces of my hair into one braid that tickles the middle of my spine.†   (source)
  • Queen positioned her chair close to his bed, deftly lifted him up, and cuddled him in her ample lap.†   (source)
  • Deftly, Jace steered them around a stoplight in the process of turning from red to green.†   (source)
  • Hodor washed the sweat from him with a warm, damp cloth and dressed him with deft and gentle hands.†   (source)
  • Some dropped to the deck coming over the transom, others he deftly maneuvered free.†   (source)
  • He deftly rolled a pair of stockings onto my feet, as if all his customers came in barefoot.†   (source)
  • She lifted the waffle iron's lid and deftly turned a waffle out on a plate.†   (source)
  • Grady speared one deftly, dropped it into the glass, and handed it to him.†   (source)
  • He got up suddenly and Monique moved deftly out of his way, but she wasn't quite swift enough.†   (source)
  • With a few deft strokes he cleaned the cut and bandaged it tightly.†   (source)
  • He deftly switched a few letters, then nodded foolishly and said, "Brom told it to me once.†   (source)
  • Do not squeeze it so tight, no, the grip must be deft, delicate.†   (source)
  • Your mind is as deft as your blade, it would seem.†   (source)
  • Deftly, he fit an arrow to the string and loosed it.†   (source)
  • He filled two thimble-sized tasting cups, pouring so deftly he did not spill a drop.†   (source)
  • Oh, deftly done, Tyrion thought, smiling crookedly.†   (source)
  • If the old Hand had been murdered, it was deftly and subtly done.†   (source)
  • He hacked down —at Rattleshirt's calf, only to have him deftly leap the blade.†   (source)
  • Her fingers moved with practiced speed, quick and deft, as she began to knit and purl.†   (source)
  • The hawk snapped it deftly from be-tween his fingers and made it disappear.†   (source)
  • Watch the needles, sidestep the needles, such deft instruments of self-disregard.†   (source)
  • Woolf balanced over his neck and steered him deftly through the pack, on the hunt for the white cap.†   (source)
  • "Blys," answered David, deftly fastening his pack with his only hand.†   (source)
  • It required a sophistication unavailable to me, and some deft manipulation of the voices around her.†   (source)
  • With a deft flick of his wrist, the cloth unfolded until it was the size of an enormous bedsheet.†   (source)
  • And I have seen how deftly he handles that staff of his.†   (source)
  • "How deftly you downplay your charms," said the Queen with a laugh.†   (source)
  • The man walked the coin deftly across his knuckles.†   (source)
  • She had seen Pilgrim rear before him once and noted how deftly Tom could move to save himself.†   (source)
  • His sword cut down the first goblin he encountered, then spun back deftly and felled a second.†   (source)
  • Three deft syllables trilling on the tip of his brain as he hurried after Sarkin Aung Wan.†   (source)
  • With a deft flick of her wrist, she tossed them over her shoulder.†   (source)
  • With deft, careful fingers she lifted the wet cloths above the bruised forehead.†   (source)
  • There was a structural unity to the place, a sense of repeated themes and deft engineering.†   (source)
  • She tossed it in the air and caught it deftly.†   (source)
  • He reached for the laces of her bodice and began to undo them, his fingers deft and practiced.†   (source)
  • And she had a deft-handedness in difficult deliveries that her aunt had come to rely upon.†   (source)
  • His fingers moved deftly over the strings of the woodharp, and soft music filled the cellar.†   (source)
  • Though they hadn't seen it, it was moving deftly toward them.†   (source)
  • This was about as deft a thing as I'd ever done.†   (source)
  • She watched his hands move deftly, swiftly, stripping the bark, and her heart surged.†   (source)
  • The two girls looked at Heinrich, anticipating a surgically deft rejoinder.†   (source)
  • Smooth motions, deft, I must not fumble now, he prayed, and the gods were kind.†   (source)
  • She peeled hers deftly in one unbroken curl and laughed when he tried to do the same and failed.†   (source)
  • Deftly Johnnie straightened and spread it, while her partner grumbled.†   (source)
  • Such an obvious ploy, that, yet deft for a boy of fifteen.†   (source)
  • I watched him step deftly around a dozen fallen eggs oozing yolky matter from a busted carton.†   (source)
  • Davos threaded their way deftly between the jagged rocks until the cave mouth loomed up before them.†   (source)
  • Once he had been taught to do something, he did it deftly.†   (source)
  • Very deftly done, I would say ...but for one small flaw.†   (source)
  • She straightened his bed, deft and efficient, then said, "You must be starved.†   (source)
  • Edward chuckled and deftly maneuvered out of the hug, placing his hand lightly on her shoulder and stepping back, as if to get a better look at her.†   (source)
  • Deftly spraying two Doxys at once as they soared straight for his nose, Harry moved closer to George and muttered out of the corner of his mouth, 'What are Skiving Snackboxes?'†   (source)
  • Oh well one must get used to such things in our situation, we are virtually prisoners ourselves you know, although one must feel pity for these poor benighted creatures, and after all she was trained as a servant, and it's as well to keep them employed, she is a wonderful seamstress, quite deft and accomplished, she is a great help in that way especially with the girls' frocks, she has an eye for trimmings, and under happier circumstances she could have made an excellent milliner's assistant.†   (source)
  • In each of those modes his face would light up accordingly, moving, easily and deftly, from one state to another.†   (source)
  • I knew I had about three seconds before he would sigh and slide me deftly away, saying something about how we'd risked my life enough for one afternoon.†   (source)
  • If I may point this out ....your lunatic deftly manipulated two fairly smart individuals already this morning.†   (source)
  • On the chopping board in front of her she's cutting more, with a paring knife, her large hands deft, indifferent.†   (source)
  • And, once the holidays are over, he's been thinking of taking a trip down to Texas to— Ah!" he said, turning from me with a deft little dance-like step as Kitsey, in ice-blue satin, swept in to greet us.†   (source)
  • Deft.†   (source)
  • The water began to boil, and in one deft movement she lifted the pot from the fire and poured the boiling water over the fowl.†   (source)
  • These large and sure-handed adults, deft at baby-handling, or at least certain not to drop a quickly moving Christ Child, were strangely out of place at the Nativity.†   (source)
  • I could change Will's tubes with a deft professionalism, sponge-bathe his naked top half without a break in our conversation.†   (source)
  • While I help Peeta coat his skin with the ointment, Finnick deftly cleans the meat from the shellfish.†   (source)
  • He was always open to new financial opportunities but was especially so now, since he knew that no matter how deftly he kept labor costs down, he still would have to pay for at least some of the transformation of his building.†   (source)
  • Hands made for fine, deft movements.†   (source)
  • According to Sophie, Langdon had been called to the Louvre tonight not as a symbologist but rather as a suspect and was currently the unwitting target of one of DCPJ's favorite interrogation methods—surveillance cachée—a deft deception in which the police calmly invited a suspect to a crime scene and interviewed him in hopes he would get nervous and mistakenly incriminate himself.†   (source)
  • Young and deft with four children one of which she delivered herself the day before she got there and who now had the full benefit of Baby Suggs' bounty and her big old heart.†   (source)
  • She picked deftly and had a reputation for speed and efficiency; she filled two flats in the time it took other pickers to fill one and a half.†   (source)
  • And so, having bagged the contract for the Synthetic Cooking Vinegar labels, he deftly banished Chacko from the fighting ranks of the Overthrowers to the treacherous ranks of the To Be Overthrown.†   (source)
  • A girl named Sukey Swift was especially deft at tickling Owen; instantly, his arms and legs would stick straight out and we'd have him up in the air again.†   (source)
  • Directly off the entrance was a seating area with a sofa and slipper chairs—lots of knickknacks, needlepoint cushions, nine or ten Old Master drawings: the flight into Egypt, Jacob and the Angel, circle of Rembrandt mostly though there was a tiny pen-and-brown-ink of Christ washing the feet of St. Peter that was so deftly done (the weary slump and drape of Christ's back; the blank, complicated sadness on St. Peter's face) it might have been from Rembrandt's own hand.†   (source)
  • Thereafter, each morning, Kabuo practiced his kendo strokes—the vertical slash that would split a man's head down the bridge of the nose, leaving one eye on each side, the skull cleaved into two parts; the four diagonal strokes—from left and right, upward and downward—that would cleave a man beneath a rib or disjoin an arm deftly; the horizontal stroke swinging in from the left that could sever a man just above the hips; and, finally, the most common of kendo strokes, a horizontal thrust a right-handed man could propel with great force against the left side of his enemy's head.†   (source)
  • And I suppose my grandmother noticed that Dan Needham was tall, and that he had a sizable bottom, and this no doubt meant to her that an even fewer-than-usual number of seats were available to him—while Lydia, not yet deft with her wheelchair, blocked the way here, and the way there, and neither my mother nor my grandmother had yet developed that necessary reflex to simply wheel her out of the way.†   (source)
  • She scooped a pile of reeds from the floor and deftly started plaiting them together, closing the subject to discussion.†   (source)
  • Her mouth tasted of honey and cloves, and her fingers were deft and practiced as they found the fastenings of his clothes.†   (source)
  • Her body felt so fat and ungainly now that she welcomed the help of their strong arms and deft hands, whereas before she had often been uncomfortable with the way they fussed and fluttered about her.†   (source)
  • The king's own fool, the pie-faced simpleton called Moon Boy, danced about on stilts, all in motley, making mock of everyone with such deft cruelty that Sansa wondered if he was simple after all.†   (source)
  • His hands moved deftly, with never a wasted cut; the work had to be done quickly, before the stink of blood brought shadowcats down from the heights.†   (source)
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