skilled

1. 1
   adjective

   Having or showing the ability to do something well, usually from training or experience.

   A skilled negotiator can find common ground where others see only conflict.

   The delicate repair required someone genuinely skilled with electronics.

   Similarexpert, proficient, accomplished, adept, able

   Oppositeinexperienced, inept, incompetent, amateurish

   Note

   Built from the noun, not the verb: skill plus -ed, the pattern of gifted or talented, meaning simply "having skill." Like other adjectives of degree, it compares with more and most, so one carpenter can be more skilled than another. Its look-alike, the past tense of skill, comes from a separate verb about knowing and discerning. The two share a spelling but arrived by different routes.

2. 2
   adjective

   Requiring special abilities or training to carry out competently.

   Carpentry is skilled labor, and good tradespeople are always in demand.

   The position is highly skilled and calls for several years of formal study.

   Similarspecialized, technical

   Note

   Here the skill belongs to the job rather than the person: skilled labor, a skilled trade, skilled work. Its usual partner is unskilled, and in wage agreements the pair sorts occupations into bands, so skilled and unskilled workers earn separate rates. A phrase like skilled worker can lean either way. Context decides whether it means a person with real ability or someone employed in a job classed as skilled.

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of skill.

   Note

   The other skilled is the past form of a verb whose meanings center on knowing: to discern, to know how, to be versed or expert. It also has an older sense of setting apart and an archaic one of mattering. Several of these meanings live mainly in dialect, and one belongs to Northern England and Scotland, where it is rare. In perfect tenses it takes have: he had skilled himself.

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