… revising the state's constitution through a series of legal stratagems and artifices …—W. Haywood Burns
b
: false or insincere behavior
social artifice
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The Difference Between Art and Artifice
Do great actors display artifice or art? Sometimes a bit of both. Artifice stresses creative skill or intelligence, but it also implies a sense of falseness and trickery. Art generally rises above such falseness, suggesting instead an unanalyzable creative force. Actors may rely on some of each, but the personae they display in their roles are usually artificial creations. Therein lies a lexical connection between art and artifice. Artifice comes from artificium, Latin for "artistry, craftmanship, craft, craftiness, and cunning." (That root also gave us the English word artificial.) Artificium, in turn, developed from ars, the Latin root underlying the word art (and related terms such as artist and artisan).
He spoke without artifice or pretense.
The whole story was just an artifice to win our sympathy.
Recent Examples on the WebBecause yes: The artifice was extreme, the wave was mediocre, and the whole thing was aggressively unnatural, near, and perhaps well beyond, the point of perversion.—Cheri Lucas Rowlands, Longreads, 29 May 2024 Their live shows are AV spectacles of remove and artifice, integral to a total project that gave machines life.—Jessica Gelt, Los Angeles Times, 25 May 2024 George Cukor’s 1939 film version starring Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, and Rosalind Russell successfully captured this artifice for all time.—Armond White, National Review, 22 May 2024 The 11 fake electors are each charged with nine criminal counts, including conspiracy, fraudulent schemes and artifices, fraudulent schemes and practices, and six counts of forgery.—Elena Santa Cruz, The Arizona Republic, 18 May 2024 See all Example Sentences for artifice
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'artifice.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
borrowed from Anglo-French & Middle French, "trade, craft, craftsmanship, contrivance," borrowed from Latin artificium "artistry, craftsmanship, craft, craftiness, cunning," from artific-, artifex "practitioner of an art, specialist, craftsman, creator" (from art-, ars "acquired skill, craftsmanship" + -fic-, -fex, agentive derivative of facere "to make, bring about, do") + -ium, denominal or deverbal suffix of function or state — more at art entry 1, fact
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