Syntheticity

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality or state of being artificial or man-made rather than natural; the characteristic of involving synthesis or the combination of elements to form something new; the property of exhibiting contrived or non-organic features
2. The condition of possessing artificial origin or design; the aspect of integrating parts to create a unified whole; the attribute of displaying manufactured or fabricated traits
3. The state of having qualities derived from synthesis rather than occurring naturally; the feature of assembling components into a complex entity; the distinction of showing constructed or engineered characteristics

Etymology: Synthetic comes from Greek "synthetikos", meaning "skilled in putting together", and the English word gained its familiar sense of man-made rather than natural through chemistry, where synthetic substances are built up from simpler parts. Attaching the suffix "-ity" turns that quality into a noun, so syntheticity names the state or degree of being artificially made. The suffix does most of the work here. "-ity" comes from Latin "-itas", and it has been attached to adjectives across English for centuries to form abstract nouns such as "authenticity" or "elasticity", so the pattern is familiar even though this particular noun is rare.

Synonyms: artificiality, man-made quality, fabrication, unnaturalness

Antonyms: naturalness, authenticity, genuineness