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1. (chemistry) not of natural origin; prepared or made artificially
   "synthetic leather";
   - man-made, semisynthetic
    
2. 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
    
3. (linguistics) systematic combining of root and modifying elements into single words
    
4. (logic) of a proposition whose truth value is determined by observation or facts
   "'all men are arrogant' is a synthetic proposition";
   - synthetical
    
5. Artificial as if portrayed in a film
   "a novel with flat synthetic characters";
   - celluloid
    
6. Not genuine or natural
   "counterfeit rhetoric that flourishes when passions are synthetic"

1. A compound made artificially by chemical reactions
   - synthetic substance

Derived forms: synthetics

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

Type of: chemical compound, compound

Antonym: analytic, uninflected

Encyclopedia: Synthetic