Skill

How to spell skill

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce skill

What does skill mean?

1. nounThe ability to do something well, gained through training or practice.

Skill in a sentence

• Years of practice gave her real skill at the piano.

• The job demands a high level of technical skill.

Where does skill come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Skill comes from the Old Norse word skil, which meant 'distinction', 'discernment', or 'a reasoned understanding of things'. Scandinavian settlers brought it into northern England during the Viking age, and in early Middle English a 'skill' was a faculty of reason: the ability to tell one thing from another and to judge wisely. Over the centuries the emphasis drifted from judging well to doing well, so by the late medieval period it had settled into its modern sense of a practical, learned ability. The related Old Norse verb skilja meant 'to separate' or 'to divide', and that idea of cleanly distinguishing things still lurks behind the notion of doing a job neatly and expertly. The simple spelling, with its short vowel and doubled final 'l' after a single stressed vowel, follows the ordinary English pattern, which is why it rarely trips an adult writer.

How the word is built

• skill (single root; from Old Norse skil 'distinction, discernment', no prefix or suffix)