artificial
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: ä(r)təfĭsh'əl
ipa: /ˌɑː(ɹ).təˈfɪʃ.əl/
ipa: [ˌɑːtɪˈfɪʃl]
rhymes: -ɪʃəl
Forms: form: more artificial
form: most artificial
Etymology: From Middle English artificial (“man-made”) via Old French (modern French artificiel), from Latin artificiālis from artificium (“skill”), from artifex, from ars (“skill”), and -fex, from facere (“to make”). Displaced native Old English cræftlīċ.
Senses: examples: text: The flowers were artificial, and he thought them rather tacky.
text: An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine. But they are nothing like as efficient, and can cause bleeding, clotting and infection—not to mention inconvenience for patients, who typically need to be hooked up to one three times a week for hours at a time.
ref: 2013 June 1, “A better waterworks”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 5 (Technology Quarterly):
glosses: Man-made; made by humans; of artifice.
examples: text: Her manner was somewhat artificial.
glosses: Insincere; fake, forced, or feigned.
examples: text: “How quickly have I fallen!” thought Tarzan; but in his heart he did not consider it a fall—rather, he pitied the poor creatures of Paris, penned up like prisoners in their silly clothes, and watched by policemen all their poor lives, that they might do nothing that was not entirely artificial and tiresome.
ref: 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 131:
text: This results in an artificial conflation of the individual crises experienced by Western European states and leads to imprecise judgements on the impact of Marshall. This confusing conflation is not simply the product of retrospection.
ref: 1990 February 19, Peter Burnham, The Political Economy of Postwar Reconstruction, Springer, →ISBN, page 73:
text: [If] the economic literature of the eighteenth century is examined in terms other than the narrow categories of free trade and protection, the artificial division between the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries would break down .
ref: 2002 May 9, Maxine Berg, Pat Hudson, Michael Sonenscher, Manufacture in Town and Country Before the Factory, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 35:
text: In Alberta, for example, policy documents reinforce an artificial distinction between leadership-related activity and management.
ref: 2016 November 10, Gabriele Lakomski, Scott Eacott, Colin W. Evers, Questioning Leadership: New directions for educational organisations, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 156:
text: The method of suppression is generally either an artificial conflation of public and private, in which the public is represented as private, or an artificial separation of public from private, which distracts attention from the public[…]
ref: 2017 July 12, A. Javier Trevino, The Sociology of Law: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives, Routledge, →ISBN:
glosses: Not natural or normal: imposed arbitrarily or without regard to the specifics or normal circumstances of a person, a situation, etc.
examples: text: Artificial keys are devised purely to facilitate determination […]
ref: 1966 October, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume I, New York, N.Y.; London: Columbia University Press, →OCLC, page 3:
topics: biology
natural-sciences
taxonomy
glosses: Based on characteristics useful for identification, without regard for the formal differences used in classification.
examples: text: An artificial bid doesn't necessarily show length in the suit being bid, it has an altogether different meaning.
ref: 1999, Edwin B. Kantar, Eddie Kantar Teaches Advanced Bridge Defense, page 191:
text: North makes an artificial call of 3♧, the cheapest suit at the 3 level, to show a very poor hand. What North holds in clubs doesn't matter at all.
ref: 2008, David Galt, Teach Yourself Visually Bridge, page 219:
topics: bridge
games
synonyms: conventional
antonyms: natural
glosses: Conveying some meaning other than the actual contents of one's hand.
Synonyms: artificious
factitious
Derived terms: artificial abortion
artificial anus
artificial art
artificial bee colony
artificial consciousness
artificial dumbness
artificial element
artificial florist
artificial general intelligence
artificial grammar learning
artificial horizon
artificial ice
artificial idiocy
artificial immune system
artificial incompetence
artificial insemination
artificial intelligence
artificialism
artificialist
artificiality
artificialization
artificialize
artificial kidney
artificial language
artificial life
artificially
artificialness
artificial person
artificial respiration
artificial rice
artificial scarcity
artificial script
artificial selection
artificial stupidity
artificial superintelligence
artificial sweetener
artificial tear
artificial tear drop
artificial turf
artificial unintelligence
artilect
bioartificial
inartificial
nonartificial
overartificial
semiartificial
unartificial
Related terms: artifact
artifice
artificer
fake