Word of the Day Archive
Wednesday May 25, 2005
artifice \AR-tuh-fis\ , noun:
1. Cleverness or skill; ingenuity; inventiveness.
2. An ingenious or artful device or expedient.
3. An artful trick or stratagem.
4. Trickery; craftiness; insincere or deceptive behavior.
Built by design and artifice, it fell apart in confusion and chaos.
-- John Gray, False Dawn
This theatricality is necessary to signal Prospero's farewell to magic, and indeed the play debates that very contrast between artifice and reality, illusion and truth.
-- Amy Rosenthal, "An insubstantial pageant", New Statesman, February 3, 2003
The smoke had cleared enough for him to see bayonets flash in the distance, behind the wall, what looked like thousands of them, the wall itself appearing to rise out of the smoke as if produced by the artifice of some magician.
-- Kathleen Cambor, In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden
The intuitive connection children feel with animals can be a tremendous source of joy. The unconditional love received from pets, and the lack of artifice in the relationship, contrast sharply with the much trickier dealings with members of their own species.
-- Frans De Waal, The Ape and the Sushi Master
Artifice comes from artificium, from artifex, artific-, "artificer, craftsman," from Latin ars, art-, "art" + facere, "to make." It is related to artificial.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for artifice
