artifice
Americannoun
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artifices
plural
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a clever trick or stratagem; a cunning, crafty device or expedient; wile.
- Synonyms:
- subterfuge
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trickery; guile; craftiness.
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cunning; ingenuity; inventiveness.
a drawing-room comedy crafted with artifice and elegance.
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a skillful or artful contrivance or expedient.
noun
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a clever expedient; ingenious stratagem
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crafty or subtle deception
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skill; cleverness
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a skilfully contrived device
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obsolete craftsmanship
Synonym Usage
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of artifice
1525–35; < Anglo-French < Latin artificium craftsmanship, art, craftiness, equivalent to arti-, combining form of ars art 1 + -fic-, combining form of facere to do 1, make + -ium + -ium
Explanation
If a politician pretends to be angry as a way of rousing the anger of the voters and getting more votes, he's guilty of artifice — a subtle and crafty trick. Before taking on its current meaning, artifice meant a skilled piece of workmanship. A beautiful diamond bracelet might have been considered a piece of artifice, for example; now it would only be called artifice if the diamonds were fake.
Vocabulary lists containing artifice
100 SAT Words Beginning with "A"
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The Federalist Papers, No. 1 by Alexander Hamilton
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Divergent
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
One day scholars will teach Lepore’s work alongside Arendt’s, seeing that Lepore interrogates not simply a modern moment, but traces our current machine age back to the 17th-century conceit for artifice as improvement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
There is no wall up, no layer of artifice between the musician and the actor plaguing modern biopics.
From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2026
Underneath the digital artifice, Chaplin’s eyes flash with hot conviction and palpable presence.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 16, 2025
Social media has become increasingly artificial; there is so much artifice in our own profiles and the sites themselves.
From Slate ● Dec. 14, 2025
My eyes burn, and it’s not artifice, unlike the wincing.
From "Divergent" by Veronica Roth
But they also find droll humor in the artifices and absurdities that some see in the genre.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 2026
He was charged with one count of fraud schemes and artifices, one count of theft and two counts of false return in September 2020 and pleaded guilty in the case six months ago.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 19, 2022
The actors deliver their lines with stark and declamatory fervor, and their gestures have a sharp, sculptural stillness that’s reminiscent of the grand artifices of classic-Hollywood productions.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 30, 2019
These days, the black-and-white artifices of midcentury studio films often seem overly mannered to viewers who didn’t grow up watching them on TV as Harry and Sally did.
From Slate ● Feb. 27, 2017
This time, along with many other artifices, they brought a flying carpet.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
