artifyv.
/ˈɑːtᵻfʌɪ/, U.S. /ˈɑrdəˌfaɪ/ transitive. To render artificial, subject to artifice; (also) to make artistic, turn into a piece of art.With quot. 1685 cf. naturalize v. 7a and artialize v.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > the arts in general > [verb (transitive)] > make artistic
artify1662
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > [verb (transitive)] > bring art into
artify1662
1662 Duchess of Newcastle Unnat. Trag. ii. xii, in Playes Written 333 They [sc. women in Italy] are so Artify'd, as a man cannot tell whether they are naturally handsom, or not.
1685 C. Cotton tr. M. de Montaigne Ess. iii. v. 150 I would as much naturalize Art, as they [sc. philosophers] artifie Nature.
1701 W. Pudsey Constit. & Laws Eng. Consider'd 1 We are labouring to Artify Nature.
1777 P. Thicknesse Year's Journey France & Spain II. xlvii. 125 Plain women do not know, that the more they adorn and artify their heads, the more conspicuous they make their natural defects.
1903 Brighton Herald 27 Oct. 11/4 Man's work..is ‘to artify the world, and to be ever spiritualizing it towards the beauty of holiness’.
1962 Times 28 Nov. 13/4 The choreography was neither fish not foul, a negative example of what can happen when an attempt is made to ‘artify’ folk elements.
1996 J. Levinson Pleasures of Aesthetics ix. 164 The Grand Canyon, which no artist has a right over, cannot be artified in the way that Duchamp artified his bottle rack and snow shovel [i.e., as a found object].
Derivatives
ˈartifying n.
ΚΠ
1940 Scrutiny 8 398 I am not in favour of a rapprochement between art-music and commerce because..the artifying of ‘low’ music has been demonstrably almost wholly bad.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2008; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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