Adroit means clever and quick in handling things. An adroit move, adroit handling, politically adroit.
It is used of manoeuvring and diplomacy more than of hands now, and it is admiring without being warm. The French is a phrase meaning to the right, and its opposite maladroit means clumsy, from the left.
1adjectiveadroitClever and quick in handling things.
“The adroit negotiator got both sides to agree without either feeling they had lost.”
adroit is a quality.
French adroit comes from a phrase meaning to the right, from Latin directus.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃reǵ-
French
adroit
English, today
adroit
Built from
Borrowed from French adroit, from French à (“on the; to”) (from Old French a (“to; towards”), from Latin ad (“to; towards”), from Proto-Indo-European ád (“at; near”)) + French droit (“right”) (from Old French droit, dreit, from Latin drictus, syncopated form of Latin dīrēctus (“laid straight; direct, straight; level; upright”), perfective passive participle of dīrigō (“to lay straight”), from dis- (“apart, in two”) (from Proto-Indo-European dwís (“twice; in two”)) + regō (“to govern, rule; to guide, steer”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European h₃réǵeti (“to be straightening, setting upright”))).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA