1.1(of a situation or concept) not existing naturally; contrived or false.
‘the artificial division of people into age groups’
‘He went on to call the situation ‘an artificial crisis,’ caused by an increased demand resulting from all the publicity.’
‘Admittedly, it was an artificial situation because the operator knew what the problem was and what sequence of keys was needed to cause the fault.’
‘That would be to limit the operation of the provision to artificial situations, for which there is no justification either in principle or in the language used.’
‘Unencumbered by bizarre and artificial notions of copyright and ownership, the kids will sort it out, I reckon.’
‘But it creates an artificial crisis for which there is absolutely no need.’
‘But we do have to answer the question, what do we do when other countries seek an artificial advantage?’
‘This provokes an artificial crisis which is used to discredit the unions by placing the blame directly on them for the crisis.’
‘All this meant that there was an artificial shortage of television advertising time available to be sold.’
‘Life gets so much easier if we give up the artificial notion that progress is linear.’
‘In this article we have made the somewhat artificial assumption that all new mutations have the same fitness effect.’
‘The fact is that our house prices are a direct result of the artificial shortage caused by planning inadequacy.’
‘Cultures grow through interaction, not through artificial isolation.’
‘However, the Court considers it rather artificial to attempt to divide the ‘wider issues’ and the negligence issue.’
‘We would like to see a policy that is led by the police, rather than an artificial device such as class A, class B, and class C drugs.’
‘It looks stagy, artificial and old-fashioned, rather than cinematic.’
‘Moreover, his selection of 1766 as an end point for his book seems rather artificial.’
‘The politicians version of the Eurovision song contest has produced a rather artificial debate.’
‘It appears to emanate from the formulation of a rather artificial linguistic paradox.’
‘We must move away from this artificial reconciliation, but rather allow white people to voluntarily join us at these celebrations.’
‘In the developed world, people devote considerably more time to artificial rather than real relationships.’