Kunstige

Kunstige is a Norwegian term meaning artificial or man-made. It is used as an adjective to describe objects, processes, or phenomena designed to imitate natural ones or produced by human craft. The word is used across fields such as horticulture, design, science, and technology to distinguish synthetic or simulated things from their natural counterparts. In Danish, a closely related form is kunstig; in Norwegian, kunstige serves as the plural or feminine form, while kunstig is common for singular masculine or neuter nouns. The term derives from kunst, art or craft, with the adjectival suffix -ige, and it is related to other Germanic words for artificial.

Usage examples include kunstige blomster (artificial flowers) and kunstig lys (artificial light). In modern technology and science, the term appears in compounds such as kunstig intelligens (artificial intelligence) and kunstige materialer (artificial materials). The word is also used more broadly to describe any manufactured substitute that is intended to resemble a natural counterpart, from materials in design to simulated behaviors in computer systems.

Kunstige contrasts with naturlig or ekte, terms used for the natural or genuine equivalents. While it often conveys a neutral or factual tone, its precise nuance can depend on context, with some contexts favoring more neutral terms like kunstig for technical descriptions and others using kunstige to emphasize plurality or grammatical agreement.