artificer

[Eng. artifice; -er. In Fr. art if icier; Sp., Port., and Ital. artifice. From Lat. artificem, acc. of artifer = (1) one who exercises a liberal art, an artist; (2) a maker of anything: ars = art, and facio = to make.] I. Lit .: One who is proficient in, or practises, any art. (Originally applied especially to one practising a liberal art, but now generally to a simple artizan.) "... for all manner of work to be made by the hands of artificer a "-1 Chron xxix. 5. IL. Fig .: One who frames, contrives, or devises anything of whatever kind: a contriver, a deviser, a forger, a framer [In Fr. art if i ciel ; Sp. & Port. artificial ; Ital. artifi ciale and artifiziale ; Lat. artificial is , from arti fioium .] [ARTIFICE.] A. As adjective: I. Ordinary Language: (6) With which art has had to do. Spec ., cultivated, as opposed to growing or arising spontaneously. (It may be used in a good sense, as an "artificial gra " = a cultivated one; or in a bad sense, as in the subjoined example.) "They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb, And vex their flesh with artificial sores. Cowper: Task, bk. L (c) Not conformable to nature; unnatural, as opposed to natural. "These seem to be the more artificial, as those of a single person the more natural governments." Temple. 2. Contrived with some measure of art or skill, as opposed to what is artle , undesigned, or unskilful. (a) ( In a good , or at least , in an indifferent sense): Ingenious. (b) ( In a bad sense): Containing or involving some kind of trickery. II. Technically : 1. Rhet. Artificial arguments: Proofs on considerations which arise from the genius, industry, or invention of the orator. They are thus called to distinguish them from laws, authorities, citations, and the like, which are said to be inartificial arguments. 2. Astron. Artificial horizon. [HORIZON.] 3. Mathematics: (a) 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 exactne , questions in trigonometry, navigation, . (b) Artificial numbers: Logarithms. 4. Bot. The artificial system of cla ification: That of Linnæus, founded mainly on the number of the stamens and pistils; the chief aim being to facilitate the naming of specimens, and not to rank together the plants which are most closely akin. The Natural as opposed to the Artificial System makes this latter object its special one, and the cla ification of Linnæus, which in its day rendered immense service in popularising Botany, has now all but sunk into disuse. art. "There ought to be added to this work many and various indices, besides the alphabetical ones; as, namely, one one of all the artificials mentioned in the whole work."- Sir W. Pety : Advice to S. Hartlib , p. 19. † ar-ti-fiç-i-al-i-tỷ (ç as sh), s. [Eng. artificial; -ily.] The quality of being artificial. "Trees in hedges partake of their artificiality ."Shensione.