synthetic

CEFRB1

/sɪnˈθɛtɪk/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
adjective
Made by humans rather than occurring naturally.
02
adjective
Extra detail
Produced by synthesis instead of being isolated from a natural source (but may be identical to a product so obtained).

Examples

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Deep Dive

Extra meanings

Of, or relating to synthesis.
Produced by synthesis, thought to have the same effect as its natural counterpart, but chemically different from it.
Artificial, not genuine.

In context

Only plastics and synthetics that cannot be recycled will end up in landfills, he said.

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

The word in print, with each source given in full.

Only plastics and synthetics that cannot be recycled will end up in landfills, he said.
2007 January 14, Elsa Brenner, “Art House to Get a Campus”, in New York Times
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.
2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848

Looking a word up is the easy part. LexUp remembers which words you have met and brings them back at the point you were about to forget them.

From French synthétique, from Ancient Greek συνθετικός (sunthetikós); Equivalent to synthesis + -ic (suffix formation of -tic).