The art of producing beautiful handwriting.

*Kalli-* is a Greek root meaning “beautiful,” and “beautiful” in the case of *calligraphy* means artistic, stylized, and elegant. Calligraphy has existed in many cultures, including Indian, Persian, and Islamic cultures; Arabic puts a particularly high value on beautiful script, and in East Asia calligraphy has long been considered a major art. Calligraphers in the West use pens with wide nibs, with which they produce strokes of widely differing width within a single letter.

(1) Biography of saints. (2) Biography that idealizes or idolizes.

For those able to read, reading stories of the lives of the saints was a popular pastime for centuries, and books collecting short saints' biographies were best sellers. These often included terrifically colorful stories (about slaying dragons, magically traveling through space, etc.) that were perhaps a bit too good to be strictly true, and after finding God not one of them ever did a single thing that wasn't saintly—and some of them may not have actually existed. Still today, *hagiographic* accounts of the lives of politicians and pop- culture stars are being written, though there now seems to be a bigger audience for biographies that seek out the not-so-wholesome secrets of the person's life, sometimes even making up a few of them.

(1) The art of composing and arranging dances and of representing them in symbolic notation. (2) The movements by dancers in a performance.

In ancient Greece, a *choreia* was a circular dance accompanied by a singing *chorus*. But the actual notating of dances by means of symbols didn't begin until the 17th or 18th century, when ballet developed into a complex art form in France. The *choreographer* of a major ballet, which might run to an hour or more, will always record his or her work in notation, though *choreographing* a five-minute segment for a TV talent show usually doesn't require any record at all.

*Lithos* is Greek for “stone,” and a stone surface has traditionally been involved in lithography, though a metal plate may take its place today. The *lithographic* process was invented around 1796 and soon became the main method of printing books and newspapers. Artists use *lithography* to produce prints (works intended to be sold in many copies), and art lithographs sometimes resemble older types of prints, including etchings, engravings, and woodcuts. Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, and M. C. Escher are among the many artists who have used lithography to produce important original works. Today lithographic printing accounts for over 40% of all printing, packaging, and publishing.

(1) Skillful. (2) Wily, crafty, sly.

A writer may produce an artful piece of prose, one that's clearly and elegantly written. The same writer might also make an artful argument, one that cleverly leaves out certain details and plays up others so as to make a stronger case. In the first instance, the prose is well crafted; in the second, the argument might instead be called crafty. But even though both uses are correct, most of us still use *artful* somewhat differently from *artistic*.

One of the things that make humans unique is their ability to make and use tools, and ever since the first rough stone axes began to appear about 700,000 years ago, human cultures have left behind artifacts from which we've tried to draw a picture of their everyday life. The roots of artifact mean basically “something made with skill”; thus, a mere stone that was used for pounding isn't an artifact, since it wasn't shaped by humans for its purpose—unlike a ram's horn that was polished and given a brass mouthpiece and was blown as part of a religious ritual.

(1) Clever skill. (2) A clever trick.

*Artifice* can be a tricky word to use. It combines the same roots as *artifact,* so it's sometimes seen in descriptions of craftsmanship (“The artifice that went into this jewelry can still astound us,” “The chef had used all his artifice to disguise the nature of the meat”). But it can also be used for many situations that don't involve physical materials (“They had gotten around the rules by a clever artifice,” “The artifice of the plot is ingenious”). Like its adjective, *artificial*, *artifice* isn't necessarily either positive nor negative. But both words can make us slightly uncomfortable if we like to think of simplicity and naturalness as important values.

A skilled worker or craftsperson.

Artisans aren't the same as *artists*, but it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference. In the Middle Ages, artisans organized themselves into guilds. In every city each group of artisans—weavers, carpenters, shoemakers, and so on—had its own guild, which set wages and prices, kept standards high, and protected its members from outside competitors. In America, however, most artisans have always been fiercely independent. Today, when factories produce almost all of our goods, artisans usually make only fine objects for those who can afford them. And we now even include food among the artisan's crafts, so you can buy *artisanal* cheeses, breads, and chocolates—but probably not if you're watching your budget.