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
Derived Forms
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.
Artistic activity spanned at least 35,000 years, lasting until around 20,000 years ago.
From Science Daily • Mar. 22, 2026
They came for the Mali Cultural and Artistic Biennial, which was hosted by the city.
From Barron's • Jan. 29, 2026
Artistic director Selina Cartmell said the season would "renew our commitment to being a world-class theatre here in the heart of Manchester and an artistic engine-room for talent development in the North".
From BBC • Sep. 15, 2025
Artistic works that eschewed the so-called Nordic ideal of beauty, in subject or in style, were likewise condemned for undermining German high culture.
From Salon • Jun. 8, 2025
At the end of the all-around finals, when I saw on the scoreboard that I’d won the gold—that I was the 2013 Artistic Gymnastics World Champion—I couldn’t take it in.
From "Courage to Soar" by Simone Biles
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.
