artificial — English Dictionary

Adjective

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

   Examples

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

   More examples (1)

   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.

   Examples

   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.

   Examples

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   “How quickly have I fallen!” thought Tarzan; but in his heart he did not consider it a fall—rather, he pitied the poor creatures of Paris, penned up like prisoners in their silly clothes, and watched by policemen all their poor lives, that they might do nothing that was not entirely artificial and tiresome.

   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.

   [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 .

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

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   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. Based on characteristics useful for identification, without regard for the formal differences used in classification.

   Examples

   Artificial keys are devised purely to facilitate determination […]

5. Conveying some meaning other than the actual contents of one's hand.

   Synonyms

   conventional

   Antonyms

   natural

   Examples

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

   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.

Adjective

1. contrived by art rather than nature

   Synonyms

   unreal

   Antonyms

   natural

   Examples

   artificial flowers

   artificial flavoring

   More examples (3)

   an artificial diamond

   artificial fibers

   artificial sweeteners

2. artificially formal

   Synonyms

   contrivedhokeystilted

   Examples

   that artificial humility that her husband hated

   contrived coyness

   More examples (2)

   a stilted letter of acknowledgment

   when people try to correct their speech they develop a stilted pronunciation

3. not arising from natural growth or characterized by vital processes