Adept

How to spell adept

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce adept

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does adept mean?

1. adjectiveHighly skilled or proficient at something.
2. nounA person who is highly skilled or expert in a particular field.

Adept in a sentence

• adjective

  She is remarkably adept at calming difficult clients.

• noun

  As a chess adept she rarely lost to amateurs.

• adjective

  After years abroad he became adept in three languages.

• noun

  The workshop was led by an adept in traditional joinery.

Where does adept come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin adeptus, meaning 'having attained' or 'having reached', the past participle of the verb adipisci 'to arrive at, to gain'. That verb was built from ad- 'to, toward' and apisci 'to reach for or pursue', a relative of aptus 'fitted, suited', which also gives us 'apt' and 'aptitude'. In the seventeenth century the alchemists adopted adeptus as a noun for one who had attained the great secret of turning base metal into gold, so an 'adept' was a master of a hidden art. English broadened the sense from that mystical expert to anyone thoroughly skilled, and the adjective meaning 'highly proficient' followed close behind. The single 'd' and single 'p' are the spelling trap: there is no doubling, just the tidy ad- prefix joined to the root.

How the word is built

• ad- (to, toward)
• ept (from aptus, by way of adipisci: to attain, reach)