[ adj ] having or revealing supreme mastery or skill <adj.all> a consummate artistconsummate skill a masterful speaker masterful technique a masterly performance of the sonata a virtuoso performance
Masterly \Mas"ter*ly\, adv. With the skill of a master.
Thou dost speak masterly. --Shak.
Masterly \Mas"ter*ly\, a. 1. Suitable to, or characteristic of, a master; indicating thorough knowledge or superior skill and power; showing a master's hand; as, a masterly design; a masterly performance; a masterly policy. ``A wise and masterly inactivity.'' --Sir J. Mackintosh.
2. Imperious; domineering; arbitrary.
G7 finance ministry officials have, perhaps, been more appreciative of these efforts than Mr Clinton's domestic audience. But the administration's handling of its economic relationship with Japan has at times been less than masterly.
"But he was a mediocre mayor at best who showed masterly inattention to detail."
Ades boasts a masterly control of touch and colour.
Yet private sector borrowing is also growing apace. Nothing in these data demands early monetary easing. The Bundesbank's natural conclusion is that this is a time for masterly inactivity.
Innocence ran through the world depicted in Graham Greene's masterly novel of Vietnam three decades ago, "The Quiet American."
Pountney's great gifts as a producer have never extended to eliciting humane detail from his operatic actors. When Falstaff is thus reduced to featherweight farce, the subtle insights of Verdi's masterly score cannot register.
Then the C major Sonata, the First, took him into high gear (young Brahms was himself a doughty virtuoso): intrepid speeds, and even in rapid-fire chords the satisfying, well-balanced crunch of a masterly attack.
The performance of the scherzo was masterly; one blessed Kreizberg for the tiny touches of violin portamento.
Newspaper leader writers praised it as a masterly political manoeuvre. And the voters?
So did Death in Venice in Colin Graham's shimmering, liquidly unfolded staging, with Philip Langridge its masterly Aschenbach.
Its finale, in which choreography hurtles in and out of the shafts of light that are the decor - the activity emerging from nothingness - is a masterly exposition of Tharp's command of dance in the theatre.
Most serious, bankers say, is that Mr. DeBartolo, so masterly at construction, has proved less so at financing projects so as to limit his exposure.