synthetic

Any material made from chemicals. Since the 1900s, more and more of the materials used in everyday life are synthetics, including plastics (polythene, polystyrene), synthetic fibres (nylon, acrylics, polyesters), synthetic resins, and synthetic rubber. Most naturally occurring organic substances can now be made synthetically, especially pharmaceuticals.

synthetic

In philosophy, a term employed by Kant to describe a judgement in which the predicate is not contained within the subject; for example, ‘The flower is blue’ is synthetic, since every flower is not blue. It is the converse of analytic.