artifice
clever trickery or artificial craft
Root
- art: skill, craft, or human making
Other words with the art root
- art: skill, craft, or creative making
- artful: clever or skillful, sometimes crafty
- artificial: made by humans; not natural
- artless: without guile; natural or naive
- inert: inactive or having no power to act
Artifice is craft with a trapdoor: something cleverly made, often to mislead.
The speech was full of artifice, polished enough to hide how little it actually said.
Artifice is where craft stops feeling innocent. The maker has skill, but the skill may be serving a disguise. Think of a beautiful mask with a motive behind it.