Picture a skilled pair of hands making something that is meant to be taken for real: a wall painted to look like old stone, a coat on a stick that passes for a person. The skill is genuine; the thing it produces is not. That double fact is the whole word. Artifice is never plain lying, because plain lying needs no craft. It is the craft used to build a false appearance — which is why the word can sound almost like praise and still be a warning.
From the word’s history
Wiktionary gives the route as Middle French artifice, from Latin artificium. The word looks like family to art, and that family resemblance matches what the modern word carries: skill first, trickery second.
來源資料寫的路線是：中古法文 artifice，再往前是拉丁文 artificium。它跟 art 看起來同一家，而這正好對上現代的用法：先是「有技術」，才是「用技術騙人」。
packet wiktionary etymology_text, source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:982993887:12966