deft

It referred to a deft turn of hand that transferred bad assets, or repainted them to make the books of the owner of said troubled assets look better.

Olympus Admits to Hiding Losses Kana Inagaki 2011

Later comes a young greenkeeper carrying a very long, supple, tawny cane: he swishes it all over the circle of dewy grass in deft half-moons, sending up a shower of diamondy drops at every stroke.

Try Anything Twice 1938

Take Secretary Baker’s jawboning of the dollar since the Plaza Agreement of 1985, which he describes as the deft execution of bad policy.

Economic Principals David Warsh 1993

For one middle-class gentlewoman who understands anything about cookery, or who really cares for it as a scientific art or domestic necessity, there are ten thousand who do not; yet our mothers and grandmothers were not ashamed to be known as deft professors, and homes were happier in proportion to the respect paid to the stewpan and the stockpot.

Modern Women and What is Said of Them A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) Lucia Gilbert [Commentator] Calhoun 1860

Khuzami was known as a deft manager while head of the white-collar unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office in the S.uthern District of New York.

Redskins Insider Podcast -- The Washington Post 2009

And these illustrations and characterizing* of the forms and essences of things are called deft - nit ioivs.

Cicero's Five Books De Finibus: Or, Concerning the Last Object of Desire and Aversion 1812

If you are going to be "deft," it's best not to reveal your sleaziness.

Morning Bits Jennifer Rubin 2011

Their tales reveal the kind of deft maneuvering we'll all be asked to make in the new world of work.

Your Next Job 2008

And it really has been, I think, an extraordinarily kind of deft management, not only of the operation of the war, but the politics of it back home.

CNN Transcript Dec 22, 2001 2001

And, depending, we could see this move termed as another "deft" move accompanied by dutiful rationalizations.

Progressive Bloggers 2010