ARTIFICE

n. 1 skill, cunning, trickery, craft, craftiness, artfulness, guile, duplicity, deception, chicanery, underhandedness, shrewdness, slyness, wiliness, trickiness He used artifice to get control of the firm 2 stratagem, device, manoeuvre, trick, contrivance, wile, ruse, subterfuge, expedient, contrivance, Colloq dodge They were deluded by artifices to cheat them out of their money