Key Difference: In the simplest of terms, knowledge is what you know. It is the accumulation of what you instinctively know and what you have learned over the years. A skill, on the other hand, is something that you have.
Knowledge and Skill are two different terms that are often confused. The main problem arises from the fact that both of them refer to arbitrary things, i.e. things that cannot exactly be measured or quantified, which also makes them hard to describe and compare. However, the two are completely different from each other and do in fact refer to difference things.
The Oxford Dictionaries denies knowledge as “Facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.” Alternately, it can also be said that knowledge is the “sum of what is known.” In the simplest of terms, knowledge is what you know. It is the accumulation of what you instinctively know and what you have learned over the years. A skill, on the other hand, is something that you have. According to Oxford Dictionaries, a skill is “the ability to do something well.”
Though the definitions of knowledge and skill sound similar, they are in fact different. Consider this, knowledge is knowing how to do something, whereas skill is the ability to not only do it but to actually do it well. Let’s look at an example: One may know how to cook a particular dish, i.e. either by reading a recipe or by watching someone else cook it. Hence, one may have the knowledge about cooking the dish. However, that does not mean that that they will be able to cook that dish or even cook it well; i.e. they won’t have the skill or ability to be a good cook.
So, as it can be seen, knowledge and skill are different but interlinked. One may have knowledge of something, but that knowledge may not amount to much if they do not have the skill to apply that knowledge. Similarly, one may have the skill for something but that skill cannot be applied to something without the knowledge of how to apply it. Hence, it can be said that both are required in order to be successful at a task.
