- 1(of a person's movements) skillful and quick deft hands/fingers/footwork He finished off the painting with a few deft strokes of the brush. In one deft movement, he had her hand locked behind her back.
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
- 2skillful her deft command of the language
adverb I threw her a towel which she deftly caught. They deftly avoided answering my questions.
noun [uncountable]See deft in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
Check pronunciation: deft