artificial

From Middle English artificial (“man-made”) via Old French (modern French artificiel), from Latin artificiālis from artificium (“skill”), from artifex, from ars (“skill”), and -fex, from facere (“to make”). Displaced native Old English cræftlīċ.

• enPR: ä(r)təfĭsh'əl, IPA^(key): /ˌɑː(ɹ).təˈfɪʃ.əl/
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): [ˌɑːrtɪˈfɪʃl]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪʃəl

artificial (comparative more artificial, superlative most artificial)

1. Man-made; made by humans; of artifice.

   The flowers were artificial, and he thought them rather tacky.

   • 2013 June 1, “A better waterworks”, in The Economist‎^[1], volume 407, number 8838, page 5 (Technology Quarterly):

     An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine. But they are nothing like as efficient, and can cause bleeding, clotting and infection—not to mention inconvenience for patients, who typically need to be hooked up to one three times a week for hours at a time.

2. Insincere; fake, forced, or feigned.

   Her manner was somewhat artificial.

3. Not natural or normal: imposed arbitrarily or without regard to the specifics or normal circumstances of a person, a situation, etc.
   • 1990 February 19, Peter Burnham, The Political Economy of Postwar Reconstruction, Springer, →ISBN, page 73:

     This results in an artificial conflation of the individual crises experienced by Western European states and leads to imprecise judgements on the impact of Marshall. This confusing conflation is not simply the product of retrospection.

   • 2002 May 9, Maxine Berg, Pat Hudson, Michael Sonenscher, Manufacture in Town and Country Before the Factory, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 35:

     [If] the economic literature of the eighteenth century is examined in terms other than the narrow categories of free trade and protection, the artificial division between the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries would break down .

   • 2016 November 10, Gabriele Lakomski, Scott Eacott, Colin W. Evers, Questioning Leadership: New directions for educational organisations, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 156:

     In Alberta, for example, policy documents reinforce an artificial distinction between leadership-related activity and management.

   • 2017 July 12, A. Javier Trevino, The Sociology of Law: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives, Routledge, →ISBN:

     The method of suppression is generally either an artificial conflation of public and private, in which the public is represented as private, or an artificial separation of public from private, which distracts attention from the public […]

4. (bridge) Conveying some meaning other than the actual contents of one's hand.

   Synonym: conventional

   Antonym: natural

   • 1999, Edwin B. Kantar, Eddie Kantar Teaches Advanced Bridge Defense, page 191:

     An artificial bid doesn't necessarily show length in the suit being bid, it has an altogether different meaning.

   • 2008, David Galt, Teach Yourself Visually Bridge, page 219:

     North makes an artificial call of 3♧, the cheapest suit at the 3 level, to show a very poor hand. What North holds in clubs doesn't matter at all.

• artificious

• (antonym(s) of “unnatural”): natural

• artifact
• artifice
• artificer

• → Welsh: artiffisial

• fake

• “artificial”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• artificial in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• “artificial”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Borrowed from Latin artificiālis.

• IPA^(key): /aɾtifiˈθjal/
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: ar‧ti‧fi‧cial

artificial (plural artificials)

1. artificial

• “artificial”, in Aragonario, diccionario castellano–aragonés (in Spanish)

From Latin artificiālis.

• IPA^(key): /aɾtifiˈθjal/, [aɾ.t̪i.fiˈθjal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Hyphenation: ar‧ti‧fi‧cial

artificial (epicene, plural artificiales)

1. artificial

• artificiu

Borrowed from Latin artificiālis.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ər.ti.fi.siˈal]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [aɾ.ti.fi.siˈal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Hyphenation: ar‧ti‧fi‧ci‧al

artificial m or f (masculine and feminine plural artificials)

1. artificial

   Antonym: natural

• artificialment
• intel·ligència artificial
• selecció artificial

• artifici

• “artificial” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Learned borrowing from Latin artificiālis.

• Rhymes: -al
• Hyphenation: ar‧ti‧fi‧cial

artificial m or f (plural artificiais)

1. artificial

• artificialmente

• artificio

• “artificial”, in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega (in Galician), A Coruña: Royal Galician Academy, since 2012

From Latin artificiālis.

• Audio (Languedoc):

  (file)

artificial m (feminine singular artificiala, masculine plural artificials, feminine plural artificialas)

1. artificial

• artificialament

• artifici

Learned borrowing from Latin artificiālis.

• Audio (Brazil):

  (file)

• Rhymes: (Portugal) -al, (Brazil) -aw
• Hyphenation: ar‧ti‧fi‧ci‧al

artificial m or f (plural artificiais)

1. artificial

• artificialmente

• artifício

Borrowed from French artificiel, from Latin artificialis. By surface analysis, artificiu +‎ -al.

artificial m or n (feminine singular artificială, masculine plural artificiali, feminine and neuter plural artificiale)

1. artificial

• artificializa

Borrowed from Latin artificiālis.

• IPA^(key): (Spain) /aɾtifiˈθjal/ [aɾ.t̪i.fiˈθjal]
• IPA^(key): (Latin America) /aɾtifiˈsjal/ [aɾ.t̪i.fiˈsjal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: ar‧ti‧fi‧cial

artificial m or f (masculine and feminine plural artificiales)

1. artificial

   Antonym: natural

• “artificial”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014