artifices

Artifices are contrivances or devices created through human craft. In general usage, an artifice is a clever trick, an expedient, or a technique used to achieve a goal, often with an implication of deception or manipulation, though it can also refer to skilled ingenuity. The plural artifices denotes multiple such devices or strategies.

Etymology: Artifice comes from Old French artificice, from Latin artificium, from facere “to make”; it is related to art and craft. The term is distinct from artifact (artefact), which denotes a tangible object made by humans rather than a method or trick.

Contexts: In rhetoric, literature, and media, artifices are devices used to persuade, entertain, or shape perception, such as metaphors, irony, or narrative feints. In theater and stagecraft, artifices include mechanical or technical means—trapdoors, hidden rigs, lighting tricks—that produce illusion. In everyday language, artifices may refer to conspiring stratagems or clever methods for solving problems.

Examples: Classical authors spoke of artifices of the mind or of style; magicians and illusionists use mechanical artifices to entertain; in strategy or games, feints and decoys are described as artifices.

See also: artifice, artifact, deception.