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Meaning of ARTIFICIAL

Pronunciation:  `ârtu'fishul

WordNet Dictionary
 
 Definition: 
  1. [adj]  artificially formal; "that artificial humility that her husband hated"; "contrived coyness"; "a stilted letter of acknowledgment"; "when people try to correct their speech they develop a stilted pronunciation"
  2. [adj]  contrived by art rather than nature; "artificial flowers"; "artificial flavoring"; "an artificial diamond"; "artificial fibers"; "artificial sweeteners"
  3. [adj]  not arising from natural growth or characterized by vital processes
 
 Websites: 
 
 Synonyms: affected, arranged, bleached, cardboard, celluloid, colored, coloured, contrived, conventionalised, conventionalized, dummy, dyed, ersatz, factitious, fake, false, faux, imitation, inorganic, man-made, near, painted, semisynthetic, simulated, staged, stilted, stylised, stylized, substitute(p), synthetic, unlifelike, unnatural, unreal
 
 Antonyms: natural
 
 See Also: counterfeit, imitative

 

 

Webster's 1913 Dictionary
 
 Definition: 
\Ar`ti*fi"cial\, a. [L. artificialis, fr. artificium:
cf. F. artificiel. See {Artifice}.]
1. Made or contrived by art; produced or modified by human
   skill and labor, in opposition to natural; as, artificial
   heat or light, gems, salts, minerals, fountains, flowers.
         Artificial strife Lives in these touches, livelier
         than life.                            --Shak.
2. Feigned; fictitious; assumed; affected; not genuine.
   ``Artificial tears.'' --Shak.
3. Artful; cunning; crafty. [Obs.] --Shak.
4. Cultivated; not indigenous; not of spontaneous growth; as,
   artificial grasses. --Gibbon.
{Artificial arguments} (Rhet.), arguments invented by the
   speaker, in distinction from laws, authorities, and the
   like, which are called inartificial arguments or proofs.
   --Johnson.
{Artificial classification} (Science), an arrangement based
   on superficial characters, and not expressing the true
   natural relations species; as, ``the artificial system''
   in botany, which is the same as the Linn[ae]an system.
{Artificial horizon}. See under {Horizon}.
{Artificial light}, any light other than that which proceeds
   from the heavenly bodies.
{Artificial lines}, lines on a sector or scale, so contrived
   as to represent the logarithmic sines and tangents, which,
   by the help of the line of numbers, solve, with tolerable
   exactness, questions in trigonometry, navigation, etc.
{Artificial numbers}, logarithms.
{Artificial person} (Law). See under {Person}.
{Artificial sines}, {tangents}, etc., the same as logarithms
   of the natural sines, tangents, etc. --Hutton.
 
Thesaurus Terms
 
 Related Terms: affected, apocryphal, assumed, bastard, bogus, brummagem, colorable, colored, concocted, contrived, counterfeit, counterfeited, cute, distorted, dressed up, dummy, elaborate, elaborated, embellished, embroidered, ersatz, euphuistic, fabricated, factitious, fake, faked, false, falsified, fashioned, feigned, fictitious, fictive, forced, garbled, Gongoresque, Gongoristic, goody-goody, high-sounding, histrionic, hollow, hyperelegant, illegitimate, imitation, insincere, junky, labored, la-di-da, made, made-up, make-believe, maniere, man-made, mannered, manufactured, Marinistic, meretricious, mincing, mock, overacted, overdone, overelaborate, overelegant, overnice, overrefined, painted, papier-mache, perverted, phony, pinchbeck, plastic, precieuse, precieux, precious, pretend, pretended, pretentious, pseudo, put-on, quaint, quasi, queer, self-styled, sham, shoddy, simpering, simulated, so-called, soi-disant, spurious, stagy, studied, substitute, supposititious, synthetic, theatrical, tin, tinsel, titivated, twisted, unauthentic, ungenuine, unnatural, unreal, warped
 

 

 

 

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