artifice

From Middle French artifice, from Latin artificium.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɑː(ɹ)tɪfɪs/

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artifice (countable and uncountable, plural artifices)

1. A crafty but underhanded deception.
   • 2021 November 21, Charles Hugh Smith, When Everything Is Artifice and PR, Collapse Beckons‎:

     The notion that consequence can be as easily managed as PR is the ultimate artifice and the ultimate delusion.

2. A trick played out as an ingenious, but artful, ruse.
   • 2021 September 22, Caroline Siede, “Dear Evan Hansen is a misfire on just about every level”, in AV Club‎:

     The heightened worlds of darkly comedic satire and soapy high-school romance make it easy enough to roll with unrealistic casting choices—and that goes for stage musicals, too, where some level of artifice is built into the format.

3. A strategic maneuver that uses some clever means to avoid detection or capture.
4. A tactical move to gain advantage.
5. (archaic) Something made with technical skill; a contrivance.

artifice (third-person singular simple present artifices, present participle artificing, simple past and past participle artificed)

1. To construct by means of skill or specialised art
   • 1867, Egbert Pomroy Watson, The Modern Practice of American Machinists and Engineers […] :

     The Creator has so cunningly endowed our bodies that there is no labor to be done, no skill in artificing or fashioning the metals, that is beyond our reach.

   • 1900, Country Life, volume 7, page 138:

     Some of the greatest artists of their day either furnished designs or with their own hands artificed ornaments for domestic use,

   • 1922, Appalachian Mountain Club, The A.M.C. White Mountain Guide: A Guide to Trails in the Mountains:

     Splints and slings, already described, are easily artificed out of small saplings or from stiff bark.

• artificial

• artifice at OneLook Dictionary Search
• artifice in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911

• actifier

Borrowed from Latin artificium.

• IPA^(key): /aʁ.ti.fis/

• Audio

  (file)

artifice m (plural artifices)

1. artifice, trick, ploy
2. (literary) device

• artificiel
• feu d'artifice
• sans artifice

• “artifice”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

artifice

1. ablative singular of artifex