… 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.
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But this was in many ways a bare-bones show about a world of excess and artifice.—Jenelle Riley, Variety, 9 June 2025 More intriguing are threads begging to be teased out about death, rebirth, and artifice.—Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 3 June 2025 The fact that videos on X are automatically muted helped launch this particular clip into virality, as the sound quickly exposes the artifice—the two women in the clip are speaking in a nonsensical language.—Dani Di Placido, Forbes.com, 28 May 2025 Owens was indicted on seven felony charges, including one count of fraudulent schemes and artifices, one count of forgery and one count of tampering with physical evidence.—Ryan Brennan, Miami Herald, 7 May 2025 See All Example Sentences for artifice
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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