art

noun

1. (uncountable)The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colours, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the senses and emotions, usually specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.

   “There is a debate as to whether graffiti is art or vandalism.”

   “B.W. Wooster: If you ask me, art is responsible for most of the trouble in the world. R. Jeeves: An interesting theory, sir. Would you care to expatiate upon it? B.W. Wooster: As a matter of fact, no, Jeeves. The thought just occurred to me, as thoughts do. R. Jeeves: Very good, sir.”

   “"I tell her what Donald Hall says: that the problem with workshops is that they trivialize art by minimizing the terror."”

   “Visual art is a subjective understanding or perception of the viewer as well as a deliberate/conscious arrangement or creation of elements like colours, forms, movements, sounds, objects or other elements that produce a graphic or plastic whole that expresses thoughts, ideas or visions of the artist.”

2. (uncountable)The creative and emotional expression of mental imagery, such as visual, auditory, social, etc.
3. (countable)Skillful creative activity, usually with an aesthetic focus.

   “She's mastered the art of programming.”

4. (uncountable)The study and the product of these processes.

   “He's at university to study art.”

5. (uncountable)Aesthetic value.

   “Her photographs are nice, but there's no art in them.”

6. (uncountable)Artwork.

   “Sotheby's regularly auctions art for millions.”

   “art collection”

7. (countable)A field or category of art, such as painting, sculpture, music, ballet, or literature.

   “I'm a great supporter of the arts.”

8. (countable)(often in dichotomy with science) A subject understood best through intuition rather than methodology.

   “Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.”

9. (countable)Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation.

   “A physician was immediately sent for; but on the first moment of beholding the corpse, he declared that Elvira's recovery was beyond the power of art.”

   “The relation of science to art may be summed up in a brief expression: From Science comes Prevision: from Prevision comes Action.”

   “The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.”

   “Let's make sandwiches out of colored paper and teach people how to listen. Listening is a social art and we had best hang on to it. A tape recording stuck in your ear won't do.”

10. (dated, uncountable)Contrivance, scheming, manipulation.

    “it was not art, Of wisdom and of justice when he spoke— When ’mid soft looks of pity, there would dart A glance as keen as is the lightning’s stroke When it doth rive the knots of some ancestral oak.”

    “[...] and Mrs. Earnshaw undertook to keep her sister-in-law in due restraint, when she returned home employing art, not force—with force she would have found it impossible.”

11. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable)Abbreviation of Achilles tendon reflex time.
12. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable)Abbreviation of assisted reproductive technology.
13. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable)Abbreviation of Androgen Replacement Therapy.
14. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable)Abbreviation of Active Release Technique.
15. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable)Abbreviation of Adaptive resonance theory.
16. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable)Abbreviation of Algebraic Reconstruction Technique.
17. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable)Abbreviation of Alternative Risk Transfer.
18. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable)Abbreviation of acoustic resonance technology.
19. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable)Abbreviation of antiretroviral therapy.

verb

1. (archaic, form-of, indicative, present, second-person, singular)second-person singular simple present indicative of be: [you] are

   “How great thou art!”

name

1. A diminutive of the male given name Arthur, from the Celtic languages.