Artificial
Artificial ({not transcribed}) , adjective
[Latin artificialis, from artificium: compare French artificiel. See Artifice.]
1.
Made or contrived by art; produced or modified by human skill and labor, in opposition to natural; as, artificial heat or light, gems, salts, minerals, fountains, flowers.
Artificial strife
Lives in these touches, livelier than life.
2.
Feigned; fictitious; assumed; affected; not genuine.
Artificial tears.
3.
Artful; cunning; crafty. [Obsolete] — Shakespeare
4.
Cultivated; not indigenous; not of spontaneous growth; as, artificial grasses. — Gibbon
Collocations (8)
Artificial arguments (Rhetoric) , arguments invented by the speaker, in distinction from laws, authorities, and the like, which are called inartificial arguments or proofs. — Johnson
Artificial classification (Science) , an arrangement based on superficial characters, and not expressing the true natural relations species; as, “the artificial system” in botany, which is the same as the Linnaan system.
Artificial horizon , See under Horizon
Artificial light , any light other than that which proceeds from the heavenly bodies.
Artificial lines , lines on a sector or scale, so contrived as to represent the logarithmic sines and tangents, which, by the help of the line of numbers, solve, with tolerable exactness, questions in trigonometry, navigation, etc.
Artificial numbers , logarithms.
Artificial sines or tangents , the same as logarithms of the natural sines, tangents, etc. — Hutton