artifice

Etymology

From Middle French artifice, from Latin artificium.

noun

1. A crafty but underhanded deception.
   The notion that consequence can be as easily managed as PR is the ultimate artifice and the ultimate delusion. November 21, 2021, Charles Hugh Smith, When Everything Is Artifice and PR, Collapse Beckons
2. A trick played out as an ingenious, but artful, ruse.
   The heightened worlds of darkly comedic satire and soapy high-school romance make it easy enough to roll with unrealistic casting choices—and that goes for stage musicals, too, where some level of artifice is built into the format. 2021-9-22, Caroline Siede, “Dear Evan Hansen is a misfire on just about every level”, in AV Club
3. A strategic maneuver that uses some clever means to avoid detection or capture.
4. A tactical move to gain advantage.
5. (archaic) Something made with technical skill; a contrivance.

verb

1. To construct by means of skill or specialised art
   The Creator has so cunningly endowed our bodies that there is no labor to be done, no skill in artificing or fashioning the metals, that is beyond our reach. 1867, Egbert Pomroy Watson, The Modern Practice of American Machinists and Engineers […]
   Some of the greatest artists of their day either furnished designs or with their own hands artificed ornaments for domestic use, 1900, Country Life, volume 7, page 138
   Splints and slings, already described, are easily artificed out of small saplings or from stiff bark. 1922, Appalachian Mountain Club, The A.M.C. White Mountain Guide: A Guide to Trails in the Mountains