| artifact | |
| 1. n. An object made or shaped by human hand. | |
| 2. n. (archaeology) An object, such as a tool, weapon or ornament, of archaeological or historical interest, especially such an object found at an archaeological excavation. | |
| The dig produced many Roman artifacts. | |
| 3. n. Something viewed as a product of human conception or agency rather than an inherent element. | |
| 4. n. A structure or finding in an experiment or investigation that is not a true feature of the object under observation, but is a result of external action, the test arrangement, or an experimental error. | |
| The spot on his lung turned out to be an artifact of the X-ray process. | |
| 5. n. (biology) A structure or appearance in protoplasm due to death, method of preparation of specimens, or the use of reagents, and not present during life. | |
| 6. n. An object made or shaped by some agent or intelligence, not necessarily of direct human origin. | |
| 7. n. (computing) A perceptible distortion that appears in a digital image, audio or video file as a result of applying a lossy compression algorithm. | |
| This JPEG image has been so highly compressed that it has unsightly compression artifacts, making it unsuitable for the cover of our magazine. | |
