artifice

noun ar·ti·fice \ ˈär-tə-fəs \

|Updated on: 9 Aug 2018

Tip: Synonym Guide

Examples: artifice in a Sentence

Editor's Note: The difference between art and artifice

Definition of artifice

1 a : clever or artful skill : ingenuity

… believing that characters had to be created from within rather than with artifice.
—Garson Kanin

b : an ingenious device or expedient

2 a : an artful stratagem : trick

… 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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Examples of artifice in a Sentence

He spoke without artifice or pretense.
The whole story was just an artifice to win our sympathy.

Recent Examples of artifice from the Web

My mother was a master of artifice, and her illness went undetected, too.

— laura zera, New York Times, "No One Helped My Mentally Ill Mother, or Me," 22 June 2018
Look at his American robin: The feathers’ surfaces almost have a tactile nap; the colors are vital, even electric, without artifice.

— edward rothstein, WSJ, "‘Before Audubon: Alexander Wilson’s Birds of the United States’ Review: Ornithology Takes Flight," 21 May 2018
Yes, sometimes being authentically U2 has meant embracing artifice; sometimes that's meant being the biggest band in the world with the most irresistible, anthemic choruses.

— joe lynch, Billboard, "U2 Brings Out the Sun Ra Arkestra, Pays Tribute to Anthony Bourdain at Legendary Apollo Theater," 13 June 2018
Shift position even slightly, though, and the artifice is plain to see.

— charles desmarais, San Francisco Chronicle, "Scenes of a privileged paradise that can never be in Ragnar Kjartansson’s ‘Western Culture’," 25 May 2018
Glitz and glamour pervade the montages as well as the sculptures on view here, and the L.A.-based Ray offsets this artifice with hints of authenticity.

— leah ollman, latimes.com, "Glitz, glamor, shine and sparkle: the dazzling photomontages of Fay Ray," 24 Apr. 2018
In playing with both convention and context in this way, Simpson draws attention to the artifice around her, and occasionally within her own work.

— hannah giorgis, The Atlantic, "Lorna Simpson Maps the Complex Galaxies of Black Women’s Hair," 10 June 2018
After Gattaca and The Truman Show, Niccol continued to make movies that explored the intersections of technology and humanity, reality and artifice.

— darryn king, WIRED, "Director Andrew Niccol Lives in His Own Truman Show (And So Do You)," 4 May 2018
In the end, though, marveling at the construction of Detroit’s branching pathways only highlights the artifice of it all.

— kyle orland, Ars Technica, "Detroit: Become Human review: Robotic in all of the wrong ways," 24 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'artifice.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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 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 derives from artificium, Latin for artifice (that root also gave English artificial). Artificium in turn developed from ars, the Latin root underlying the word art (and related terms such as artist and artisan).

Origin and Etymology of artifice

Middle French, from Latin artificium, from artific-, artifex artificer, from Latin art-, ars + facere — see artifact

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1540

in the meaning defined at sense 1a

See Words from the same year

artifice Synonyms

Synonym Discussion of artifice

trick, ruse, stratagem, maneuver, artifice, wile, feint mean an indirect means to gain an end. trick may imply deception, roguishness, illusion, and either an evil or harmless end.