Word.ws English Dictionary

de-skill

de-skill is the alternative form of deskill.

Meaning of deskill

Verb

deskill (third-person singular simple present deskills, present participle deskilling, simple past and past participle deskilled)

  1. (transitive) To redesign (a job) so that less skill is required to carry it out, for example through the introduction of new technology.
    • The impact on workers is fairly obvious but I believe that managerial jobs have also been deskilled by the adoption of controlling systems and procedures.
  2. (transitive) To change the role of (workers) so that they are no longer required or able to use the skills that they have acquired.
    • Tragic, too, is the gradual deskilling of teachers, loss of excitement about the profession, and loss of gifted teachers to other pursuits.

Forms of de-skill

third-person singular presentde-skills
present participlede-skilling
past participlede-skilled
pastde-skilled

Questions about de-skill

What is de-skill the alternative form of?
De-skill is the alternative form of deskill.

Words near de-skill in the dictionary

  1. de-riveters
  2. de-Rozier
  3. de-Rozier balloon
  4. de-Rozier balloons
  5. de-Roziers
  6. de-skill
  7. de-skilled
  8. de-skilling
  9. de-skills
  10. de-Sovietisation
  11. de-Sovietization

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: de-skill (page history and authors); deskill (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “de-skill.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/de-skill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.