Charcoal is a beautiful medium in a dexterous hand, but is more adaptable to mass than to line drawing.

The danger is that its use is apt to lead to a too dexterous manner of painting; a dexterity more concerned with the clever manner in which a thing is painted than with the truth expressed.

Here is a paragraph or two concerning this big operator, from a now forgotten book which was published half a century ago He appears to have been a most dexterous as well as consummate villain.

He examined the bullets with which Monte Cristo performed this dexterous feat, and saw that they were no larger than buckshot.

All the buildings and trees seemed easily practicable to such dexterous climbers as the Morlocks, to judge by their wells, must be.

My mistress had a daughter of nine years old, a child of towardly parts for her age, very dexterous at her needle, and skilful in dressing her baby.

And although they are dexterous enough upon a piece of paper, in the management of the rule, the pencil, and the divider, yet in the common actions and behaviour of life, I have not seen a more clumsy, awkward, and unhandy people, nor so slow and perplexed in their conceptions upon all other subjects, except those of mathematics and music.

These papers are delivered to a set of artists, very dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters: for instance, they can discover a close stool, to signify a privy council; a flock of geese, a senate; a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, a prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of state; a chamber pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a general; a running sore, the administration.

Now your honour is to know, that these judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing any thing unbecoming their nature or their office.

But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the quarter-deck, seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint; for, tipping all sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions, and kicking off his shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless squall of a hornpipe right over the Grand Turk's head; and then, by a dexterous sleight, pitching his cap up into the mizentop for a shelf, he goes down rollicking so far at least as he remains visible from the deck, reversing all other processions, by bringing up the rear with music.

Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement the men sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled round in the blocks; with a wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while, with a dexterous, off-handed daring, unknown in any other vocation, the sailors, goat-like, leaped down the rolling ship's side into the tossed boats below.

Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of the boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm to Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on his hearse-plumed head and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders.

He averred, that upon first thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;--he had thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in the good old way--head foremost.

With a grating rush, the three lines flew round the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them; while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would soon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they caught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at last--owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of the boats, whence the three ropes went straight down into the blue--the gunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three sterns tilted high in the air.

Again and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart is repeated, the spear returning to its master like a greyhound held in skilful leash.

The word "destrier" is derived from the Vulgar Latin "dextarius", meaning "right-sided" (the same root as our modern "dexterous" and "dexterity").

Thieves are usually stealthy and dexterous characters able to disarm traps, pick locks, spy on foes, and perform backstabs from hiding.

Norris' verbally dexterous and fast-paced dramas are reminiscent of Edward Albee's comically tragic plays, which contemplate the complexities of the American psyche and the family dynamic.

"Lo Positivo" (1862), imitated from Adrien-Augustin-Léon Laya's "Duc Job", is well-nigh forgotten, though the Spanish version is a dexterous piece of stagecraft and contains some elements of original value.

He soon proved himself, as he is termed by Polybius, a ready and dexterous instrument of autocracy: it was by his ministration, if not at his instigation, that Ptolemy put to death in succession his uncle Lysimachus, his brother Magas, and his mother Berenice.

Huston had a reputation as a dexterous campaign fund raiser for the Republican National Committee and was President Hoover's personal choice to succeed Herman Work as RNC Chairman in 1930, but only after Senate Republicans also expressed their satisfaction with Huston.

Glen was a ""dexterous, elegant dribbler (who) swerved and weaved with devastating effect"".