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Skillful guidance or management; generalship. Conduct of armies is a prince's art. Waller. Attacked the Spaniards . . . with great impetuosity, but with so little conduct, that his forces were totally routed. Robertson.

One well versed in any subject; a skillful or knowing person; a critical judge of any art, particulary of one of the fine arts. The connoisseur is "one who knows," as opposed to the dilettant, who only "thinks he knows." Fairholt.

land; to attend for protection; to escort; as, a frigate convoys a merchantman. I know ye skillful to convoy The total freight of hope and joy. Emerson.

One of a warlike, pastoral people, skillful as horsemen, inhabiting different parts of the Russian empire and furnishing valuable contingents of irregular cavalry to its armies, those of Little Russia and those of the Don forming the principal divisions.

Possessing dexterity; skilled; skillful. A noble crafty man of trees. Wyclif.

artistic works, etc., and passes judgment upon them; a reviewer. The opininon of the most skillful critics was, that nothing finer [than Goldsmith's "Traveler"] had appeared in verse since the fourth book of the "Dunciad." Macaulay.

Knowing; skillfull; dexterous. "A cunning workman." Ex. xxxviii. 23. "Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on. Shak. Esau was a cunning hunter. Gen xxv. 27.

A skillful hand; a dabster; an expert. [Colloq.] One excels at a plan or the titlepage, another works away at the body of the book, and the therd is a dab at an index. Goldsmith.

Cunningly or ingeniously formed or working; skillful; artistic; ingenious. Our bodies decked in our dædalian arms. Chapman. The dædal hand of Nature. J. Philips. The doth the dædal earth throw forth to thee, Out of her fruitful, abundant flowers. Spenser.

To paint in a coarse or unskillful manner. If a picture is daubed with many bright and glaring colors, the vulgar admire it is an excellent piece. I. Watts. A lame, imperfect piece, rudely daubed over. Dryden.

One who, or that which, daubs; especially, a coarse, unskillful painter.

implacable; desperately hostile; flagitious; as, deadly enemies. Thy assailant is quick, skillful, and deadly. Shak.

Of determined purpose; resolute. [Obs.] More determinate to do than skillful how to do. Sir P. Sidney. Determinate inflorescence (Bot.), that in which the flowering commences with the terminal bud of a stem, which puts a limit to its growth; -- also called centrifugal inflorescence. -- Determinate problem (Math.), a p…

Ready and expert in the use of the body and limbs; skillful and active with the hands; handy; ready; as, a dexterous hand; a dexterous workman.

In a dexterous manner; skillfully.

nce (see Distance, n., 3); to leave far behind; to surpass greatly. He distanced the most skillful of his contemporaries. Milner.

The act of evading by some skillful movement; a sudden starting aside; hence, an artful device to evade, deceive, or cheat; a cunning trick; an artifice. [Colloq.] Some, who have a taste for good living, have many harmless arts, by which they improve their banquet, and innocent dodges, if we may be permitted to use an…

To fit in or connect strongly, skillfully, or nicely; to fit ingeniously or complexly. He put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed . . . that it was indeed a very curious show. Burke.

A dwarf supposed to dwell in rocks and hills and to be skillful in working metals.

One who carries through an enterprise by skillful or artful contrivance; an efficient manager. [Colloq.] Civil engineer, a person skilled in the science of civil engineering. -- Military engineer, one who executes engineering works of a military nature. See under Engineering.