Subscriber login


Forgot your password?

Library card login

Other

synthetic

Pronunciation: /sɪnˈθɛtɪk/

Translate synthetic | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of synthetic

adjective

  • 1(of a substance) made by chemical synthesis, especially to imitate a natural product:synthetic rubber
  • (of an emotion or action) not genuine; insincere:their tears are a bit synthetic
  • 2 Logic (of a proposition) having truth or falsity determinable by recourse to experience. Compare with analytic.
  • 3 Linguistics (of a language) characterized by the use of inflections rather than word order to express grammatical structure. Contrasted with analytic and agglutinative.

noun

(usually synthetics)
  • a synthetic material or chemical, especially a textile fibre.

Derivatives

synthetical

adjective

synthetically

adverb

Origin:

late 17th century: from French synthétique or modern Latin syntheticus, from Greek sunthetikos, based on suntithenai 'place together'

synthetic in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of synthetic in the US English dictionary

Nearby words

  |  Cite

More words in this category

Word of the day

secretagogue

/ sɪˈkriːtəgɒg /
noun
a substance which promotes secretion …