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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.
  2. n. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
  3. n. The study of these activities.
  4. n. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.
  5. n. High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value.
  6. n. A field or category of art, such as music, ballet, or literature.
  7. n. A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts.
  8. n. A system of principles and methods employed in the performance of a set of activities: the art of building.
  9. n. A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles and methods: the art of the lexicographer.
  10. n. Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation: the art of the baker; the blacksmith's art.
  11. n. Skill arising from the exercise of intuitive faculties: "Self-criticism is an art not many are qualified to practice” ( Joyce Carol Oates).
  12. n. Artful devices, stratagems, and tricks.
  13. n. Artful contrivance; cunning.
  14. n. Printing Illustrative material.
  15. v. Archaic A second person singular present indicative of be.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.
  2. n. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colours, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
  3. n. Activity intended to make something special.
  4. n. A re-creation of reality according to the artist's metaphysical value judgements.
  5. n. The study and the product of these processes.
  6. n. Aesthetic value.
  7. n. Artwork.
  8. n. A field or category of art, such as painting, sculpture, music, ballet, or literature.
  9. n. A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts.
  10. n. Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation.
  11. v. Second-person singular simple present tense indicative of be.

Etymologies

  1. Middle English, from Old French, from Latin ars, art-; see ar- in Indo-European roots.Middle English, from Old English eart; see er-1 in Indo-European roots.

Examples

  • “ATTRIBUTION: HILTON KRAMER, The New York Times art critic, in the late 1960s when the term “minimal art” was in vogue.”

    Hilton Kramer (1928-)

  • “NATURE, the art whereby God hath made and governs the world, is by the ‘art, ’ of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal.”

    Introduction

  • “Cellini’s use of the word arte for the art or trade of goldsmiths corresponds to “the art” as used by English writers early in this century.”

    XIV

  • “Artistic and literary history is, therefore, _a historical work of art founded upon one or more works of art_.”

    Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic

  • “The only way in which art could disallow such criticism would be to protest its irresponsible infancy, and admit that it was a more or less amiable blatancy in individuals, and not _art_ at all.”

    The Life of Reason

  • “But, asks the reader, if every human activity resulting in visible or audible form is to be considered, at least potentially, as art; what becomes of _art_ as distinguished from _craft_, or rather what is the difference between what we all mean by art and what we all mean by”

    Laurus Nobilis Chapters on Art and Life

  • “Throughout the previous part of the world's history art and craft have been one and the same, at the utmost distinguishable only from a different point of view: _craft_ from the practical side, _art_ from the contemplative.”

    Laurus Nobilis Chapters on Art and Life

  • “Every trade concerned with visible or audible objects or movements has also been an art; and every one of those great creative activities, for which, in their present isolation, we now reserve the name of _art_, has also been a craft; has been connected and replenished with life by the making of things which have a use, or by the doing of deeds which have a meaning.”

    Laurus Nobilis Chapters on Art and Life

  • “The least of these illuminators, with his insignificant eyeless face, possesses at his fingers 'ends the maximum of dexterity in this art of decoration, light and wittily incongruous, which threatens to invade us in France, in this epoch of imitative decadence, and which has become the great resource of our manufacturers of cheap "_objects of art_.”

    Madame Chrysantheme

  • “Nature, the art whereby God hath made and governs the world, is by the _art_ of man, as in many other things, in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal.”

    Mind and Motion and Monism

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  • Telofy That one is my own creation. :-)
    The idea came to me when I read the sentences "What exactly are you a professor of, Mr. Logan?" – "Art."
    I just wasn't so sure about the "of". Someone clumsily trying to ancientize his sentence would probably also try and avoid preposition stranding but a reordering of the words would distract from the nub of the joke, so I changed that from the beginning. May 8, 2009

  • yarb Ha ha! That's a good 'un!

    Do you write your own gags, telofy? May 8, 2009

  • Telofy "Of what exactly are you a professor?"
    "Art."
    "OK, of what exactly art thou a professor?" May 8, 2009

  • kewpid “… when you do something and other people talk about it�?.
    — Liza Ghorbani, ‘Doing Things You’re Not’ New York Times (7 November, 2008) Nov 16, 2008

  • lampbane Watertown International Airport. Oct 24, 2008

  • sakhalinskii "Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere." - G. K. Chesterton Jul 30, 2008

  • oroboros A certain man was accosting people on the street and telling every other one, "Rather than just mindlessly attacking the arts, why not ask yourselves this:
    Does what I see, hear and read that other men produce make me feel better or not?"...

    One of the pedestrians so spoken to responded by saying,
    "Why not instead ask if what others produce artistically makes you feel more like a human or not?"

    And the man replied, "Would prove nothing."

    --Jan Cox Nov 17, 2007

‘art’ has been looked up 3480 times, loved by 2 people, added to 59 lists, commented on 7 times, and has a Scrabble score of 3.