Sense file
How the sense moved
The archive follows the dated record first, then reads the social or rhetorical pressure that hardened, softened, narrowed, or reversed the word.
Older meaning
Made skillfully by art or craft.
Modern meaning
Fake, synthetic, or unnatural.
Research lens
A strong example of how modern value judgments get smuggled into ordinary descriptive language.
Meaning trail
Root
of art or craft
The core idea was making, not fakery.
Older sense
skillfully made
Human technique was the point.
Now
unnatural or fake
Modern value judgment often arrives with the word.