English

Adjective

synthetic ‎(comparative more synthetic, superlative most synthetic)

1. Of, or relating to synthesis.
2. (chemistry) Produced by synthesis instead of being isolated from a natural source (but may be identical to a product so obtained).
   • 2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:

     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.

3. Artificial, not genuine.
4. (grammar) Pertaining to the joining of bound morphemes in a word. Compare analytic.

Derived terms

• nucleosynthetic
• syntheticism

Translations

Noun

synthetic ‎(plural synthetics)

1. A synthetic compound.
   • 2007 January 14, Elsa Brenner, “Art House to Get a Campus”, in New York Times:

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