syn·thet·ic / sinˈ[unvoicedth]etik/ • adj. relating to or using synthesis. ∎  (of a substance) made by chemical synthesis, esp. to imitate a natural product: synthetic rubber. ∎  (of an emotion or action) not genuine; insincere: their tears are a bit synthetic. ∎  Logic (of a proposition) having truth or falsity determinable by recourse to experience. Compare with analytic. ∎  Linguistics (of a language) characterized by the use of inflections rather than word order to express grammatical structure.Contrasted with agglutinative and analytic.• n. (often synthetics) a synthetic material or chemical, esp. a textile fiber.DERIVATIVES: syn·thet·i·cal adj.syn·thet·i·cal·ly / -ik(ə)lē/ adv.

SYNTHETIC. A term in LINGUISTICS for a language in which words tend to be composed out of two or more grammatical units, as in Latin amabamus (we loved), which combines ‘love’, past, first person, plural. English has such synthetic words as unfindable (unfind-able) and repainted (re-paint-ed). See LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY.