MEANING
1. To reorganize a job or task so that less skill is needed to perform it.
2. To reduce the level of skill a worker possesses or can maintain.
Use it for
describing automation that reduces job complexity; analyzing changes in required expertise; distinguishing simplified work from lower output; examining how tasks are redistributedDistinguishes reducing a job’s skill requirements from reducing a worker’s existing skills. Writing functions: Causation / Relationships.
Words that belong together
- deskill a job
- deskill a task
- technology that deskills work
On the page
The software deskilled routine calculations while creating new demands for checking the results.
Breaking the process into standardized steps can deskill some roles without eliminating them.
The training review asks whether prolonged dependence on automatic checks could deskill the staff.
A narrow assignment may deskill experienced workers if it prevents them from practicing broader tasks.
Word forms
- Base
- deskill
- Past tense
- deskilled
- Past participle
- deskilled
- Present participle
- deskilling
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- deskill
- Present continuous
- am/is/are deskilling
- Present perfect
- have/has deskilled
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been deskilling
- Past
- deskilled
- Past continuous
- was/were deskilling
- Past perfect
- had deskilled
- Past perfect continuous
- had been deskilling
- Future
- will deskill
- Future continuous
- will be deskilling
- Future perfect
- will have deskilled
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been deskilling
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
Usage notes
Transitive: deskill, deskills, deskilled, deskilled, deskilling; future will deskill. The process noun deskilling is not counted as another canonical entry. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common in work and labor analysis (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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