Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Relating to, involving, or of the nature of synthesis.
  • adjective Chemistry Produced by synthesis, especially not of natural origin.
  • adjective Prepared or made artificially.
  • adjective Not natural or genuine; artificial or contrived.
  • adjective Linguistics Relating to or being a language, such as Latin or Russian, that uses inflectional affixes to express syntactic relationships.
  • adjective Logic & Philosophy Relating to or being a proposition that attributes to a subject a predicate not inherent in the subject and that does not result in a contradiction if negated.
  • adjective Of or relating to a financial instrument or investment that consists entirely of derivatives, especially swap contracts.
  • noun A synthetic chemical compound or material.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In chem., noting a substance made by artificial means, in the laboratory, in contradistinction to one produced without human agency, as in vegetables and animals. Thus indigo is produced from certain plants and may also be made artificially, or synthetically, from naphthalene.
  • In pictorial composition, noting an arrangement which tells a story or explains a situation.
  • Of or pertaining to synthesis; consisting in synthesis: as, the synthetic method of reasoning, as opposed to the analytical.
  • In grammar, characterized by synthesis, or the combination of radical and formative elements into one word, as distinguished from their maintenance in separate words, which is analytic.
  • In biology, of a general or comprehensive type of structure; combining in one organism characters which are to be specialized in several different organisms in the course of evolution; generalized, not specialized; undifferentiated.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to synthesis; consisting in synthesis or composition.
  • adjective (Chem.) Artificial. Cf. Synthesis, 2.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) Comprising within itself structural or other characters which are usually found only in two or more diverse groups; -- said of species, genera, and higher groups. See the Note under Comprehensive, 3.
  • adjective an inflectional language, or one characterized by grammatical endings; -- opposed to analytic language.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, or relating to synthesis.
  • adjective chemistry Produced by synthesis instead of being isolated from a natural source (but may be identical to a product so obtained).
  • adjective Artificial, not genuine.
  • adjective grammar Pertaining to the joining of bound morphemes in a word. Compare analytic.
  • noun A synthetic compound.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective systematic combining of root and modifying elements into single words
  • adjective artificial as if portrayed in a film
  • adjective not of natural origin; prepared or made artificially
  • adjective involving or of the nature of synthesis (combining separate elements to form a coherent whole) as opposed to analysis
  • adjective of a proposition whose truth value is determined by observation or facts
  • adjective not genuine or natural
  • noun a compound made artificially by chemical reactions

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek sunthetikos, skilled in putting together, component, from sunthetos, combined, from suntithenai, to put together; see synthesis.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word synthetic.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.