[Ian Smith]

12/11/07.

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.

Examples of proper usage:

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.