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Synthetic
//sɪnˈθɛtɪk// adj, noun
Definitions
Adjective
- 1 Of, or relating to synthesis.
- 2 Produced by synthesis instead of being isolated from a natural source (but may be identical to a product so obtained).
"As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one."
- 3 Produced by synthesis, thought to have the same effect as its natural counterpart, but chemically different from it.
- 4 Artificial, not genuine.
- 5 Pertaining to the joining of bound morphemes in a word (compare analytic).
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- 6 Of a language, having a grammar principally dependent on the use of bound morphemes to indicate syntactic relationships (compare analytic).
Adjective
- 1 of a proposition whose truth value is determined by observation or facts wordnet
- 2 systematic combining of root and modifying elements into single words wordnet
- 3 involving or of the nature of synthesis (combining separate elements to form a coherent whole) as opposed to analysis wordnet
- 4 not genuine or natural wordnet
- 5 artificial as if portrayed in a film wordnet
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- 6 not of natural origin; prepared or made artificially wordnet
Noun
- 1 A synthetic compound.
"Only plastics and synthetics that cannot be recycled will end up in landfills, he said."
- 2 a compound made artificially by chemical reactions wordnet
Etymology
Etymology 1
From French synthétique, from Ancient Greek συνθετικός (sunthetikós); Equivalent to synthesis + -ic (suffix formation of -tic).
Etymology 2
From French synthétique, from Ancient Greek συνθετικός (sunthetikós); Equivalent to synthesis + -ic (suffix formation of -tic).
See also for "synthetic"
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