artifice
Americannoun
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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.
But layer a catchy tune over all that artifice, and the music is the only thing many people will hear.
From Salon • Apr. 25, 2026
We are reminded that Matisse always affirmed the artifice of painting, presenting us with undisguised models surrounded by studio props, often in garments that repeat from painting to painting.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 13, 2026
Anytime the film veers into computer-generated territory, it takes on a sheen of cheesy artifice.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 6, 2026
The world that shaped Miller’s early years was one of suburban perfection and sheltered artifice, a nostalgic ideal so far removed from reality that it shares a developer with Disney World.
From Slate • Dec. 18, 2025
In a case like this the experimental method requires you to move smoothly back and forth between nature and artifice.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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.
