Middlemarch vocabulary

By her own quick-wittedness and adroitness she had turned the tables [...].

Agatha Christie. And Then There Were None. p.181 (1939)

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Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing himself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea.

Herman Melville. Moby Dick

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I approached her, pretending to desire a view of the garden; and, as I fancied, adroitly dropped Mrs. Dean’s note on to her knee,

Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights (1847)

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He told her about the election, and Anna knew how by adroit questions to bring him to what gave him most pleasure— his own success.

Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina (Translated by Constance Garnett)