artistic
Americanadjective
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conforming to the standards of art; satisfying aesthetic requirements.
artistic productions.
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showing skill or excellence in execution.
artistic workmanship.
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exhibiting taste, discriminating judgment, or sensitivity.
an artistic arrangement of flowers; artistic handling of a delicate diplomatic situation.
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exhibiting an involvement in or appreciation of art, especially the fine arts.
He had wide-ranging artistic interests.
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involving only aesthetic considerations, usually taken as excluding moral, practical, religious, political, or similar concerns.
artistic principles.
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of art or artists.
artistic works.
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of, like, or thought of as characteristic of an artist.
an artistic temperament.
adjective
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of or characteristic of art or artists
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performed, made, or arranged decoratively and tastefully; aesthetically pleasing
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appreciative of and sensitive to beauty in art
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naturally gifted with creative skill
Other Word Forms
- artistically adverb
- interartistic adjective
- nonartistic adjective
- nonartistical adjective
- nonartistically adverb
- preartistic adjective
- pseudoartistic adjective
- pseudoartistically adverb
- quasi-artistic adjective
- quasi-artistically adverb
- unartistic adjective
- unartistically adverb
Etymology
Origin of artistic
Explanation
The adjective artistic describes people who are creative or creations called "art." While you might not consider the sculptor Oldenburg's inflatable toilet as "art," recreating something ordinary in a unique way is very artistic. Artistic often describes something pleasing to look at, but you don't have to like everything called artistic. If you make paintings, clay figures, or computer drawings, you're being artistic, because you're creating works of art. If you're creative in a less structured way — say, you arrange everything on your desk by shape and color so it looks nice and you enjoy doing it — that's artistic too. It may not always be "art," but it's still artistic creation.
Vocabulary lists containing artistic
Week 1 Spelling
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"Journeys," Vocabulary from Lesson 16
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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.
Nearly 25 years later, Hwang found himself in talks with East West Players’ artistic director Lily Tung Crystal about which of his shows could join the company’s 60th anniversary lineup.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 27, 2026
Here, technical precision, functionality and artistic beauty converged in a way that set it apart from earlier astrolabes produced in parts of the Middle East, which might have only been functional.
From BBC • Apr. 25, 2026
"Most Soviet mosaics were designed to convey an ideological message, but their artistic value is also important," activist Kudaibergenova said.
From Barron's • Apr. 24, 2026
These recordings are most captivating not for the looks being modeled but as a reminder that flexible and DIY spaces that long served as incubators for boundary-pushing artistic experiments are quickly disappearing.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 22, 2026
Unlike my father, who blindly churned out one canvas after another, I had real ideas about the artistic life.
From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris
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.
