1. (chemistry) not of natural origin; prepared or made artificially
   "synthetic leather";
   - man-made, semisynthetic
    
2. Not genuine or natural
   "counterfeit rhetoric that flourishes when passions are synthetic"
    
3. Involving or of the nature of synthesis (combining separate elements to form a coherent whole) as opposed to analysis
   "limnology is essentially a synthetic science composed of elements … that extend well beyond the limits of biology";
   - synthetical
    
4. (linguistics) systematic combining of root and modifying elements into single words
   "German is known for its synthetic word formation"
    
5. (logic) of a proposition whose truth value is determined by observation or facts
   "‘all men are arrogant’ is a synthetic proposition";
   - synthetical
    
6. Artificial as if portrayed in a film
   "a novel with flat synthetic characters";
   - celluloid

1. A compound made artificially by chemical reactions
   "The new fabric was made entirely from synthetic materials"; "Nylon is a synthetic substance widely used in clothing and industrial applications";
   - synthetic substance

Derived forms: synthetics

See also: a posteriori, agglutinative, artificial, counterfeit, imitative, inductive, logical, polysynthetic, unreal

Type of: chemical compound, compound

Antonym: analytic

Encyclopedia: Synthetic