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.
-
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:
Ms. Winger has always been a film actor of luminous transparency; her performance here, by contrast, feels cloaked in artifice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
There is no wall up, no layer of artifice between the musician and the actor plaguing modern biopics.
From Salon ● Jul. 8, 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
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
“There are a series of artifices that she builds to create this translation of worlds, to help us see what they see.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 20, 2023
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 Valley” is a visual contemplation of an animal impulse in the context of late capitalism, activated by the artifices and edifices of the American suburb.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 9, 2017
Upset by the news, José Arcadio Buendía stood motionless, trying to rise above his affliction, until the group dispersed, called away by other artifices, and the puddle of the taciturn Armenian evaporated completely.
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.
