We explain what skill is, where its meaning and examples come from. Also, the difference between dexterity and ability.
What is dexterity?
The term dexterity, from Latin dextra (“Right”), is used to name the ability with which a person successfully carries out a task or job, generally linked to the body and manual trades. Thus, people who demonstrate dexterity are called right-handed.
It is here to explain that the origin of this word is linked to the use of the right hand (In fact, the right hand is known as “right hand”, as opposed to the left or “left”), since the right side of the body was formerly associated with positive spiritual values: reason, faith, truth and God, while the left side to their opposites: the emotion, the lie and the diabolical or pagan.
Hence, there is talk of “getting up with the left foot” to say that someone woke up in a bad mood, or “left hand” to refer to manipulation and conviction, or even that until relatively recently left-handed people were forced to write “correctly”: with the right hand. Similarly, those who can use both hands equally are known as ambidextrous: “who have two right hands.”
That said, the term skill will be understood to refer to the ability to do things right, that is, to do them “with the right”.
Examples of dexterity
You can have dexterity in practically any activity, although the term usually refers to those of a physical nature, such as sports, agility, balance, elasticity, strength and coordination, etc.
In general terms, when it is said that a person is right-handed, it refers to having good physical abilities, is resistant, agile or talented in handling the body.
It is also possible to speak of “mental skills”, which would be a kind of metaphorical use of the term, to indicate that a person uses his talents or mental abilities in a way comparable to how an athlete or a person does with his body. agile, strong, etc.
Difference between dexterity and ability
Commonly I know distinguish skills from abilities, although there is not really a concrete and universal definition of each one.
By ability, then, is understood the innate talent that a person possesses in a certain activity or area, regardless of what it is: physical, mental or social. It is the characteristics of an individual that allow him to perform remarkably well in a certain activity.
Instead, as we have already seen, skill tends to be more closely related to the body and objects: skill with knives, skill in juggling, skill in sports, etc.