artifact
human-made object of historical interest
An old object made by people, often found in a museum or at an ancient site.
an artifact; an artifact from [place/time]; a collection of artifacts
- The archaeologists uncovered a small bronze artifact near the temple ruins.
- The museum returned several artifacts to the community they came from.
- Each artifact in the exhibit was labeled with its estimated age and origin.
- We saw ancient artifacts in the museum.
- They found an artifact in the ground.
false feature caused by measurement
Something that looks real in the results but is actually caused by the test or method.
an artifact of [process/method]; an artifact in [data/image/scan]
- The spike in the graph turned out to be an artifact of the sampling method.
- Radiologists checked whether the bright line was a real finding or an imaging artifact.
- After recalibrating the instrument, several artifacts disappeared from the results.
- This line in the scan is an artifact, not a problem.
- The strange result was an artifact of the test.
unwanted digital distortion in media
A bad effect in a digital photo, video, or sound caused by processing.
compression artifacts; artifacts in [video/audio/image]
- At a low bitrate, the stream shows obvious compression artifacts around fast movement.
- The editor increased the noise reduction, but it created new artifacts in the shadows.
- After re-encoding the file, the audio artifacts were much less noticeable.
- This video has artifacts after compression.
- I can hear artifacts in the audio.
product of human culture
Something people made that shows their culture.
a cultural artifact; an artifact of [culture/era]
- The smartphone is often discussed as a cultural artifact that shapes daily behavior.
- In the seminar, students analyzed advertisements as artifacts of changing social values.
- The novel is treated as an artifact of its era, revealing common beliefs and anxieties.
- A song can be a cultural artifact.
- These objects are artifacts of daily life.
file produced by a software build
A file made by a software build that you can save or deploy.
build artifacts; publish/upload/store artifacts; an artifact repository
- The CI system uploads the build artifacts to a shared repository after each successful run.
- We couldn't reproduce the bug because the artifact was built with different flags.
- Before deployment, the team verified the integrity of the release artifacts.
- The build creates an artifact.
- We saved the artifacts from the test run.
- Base: artifact
- Plural: artifacts
archaeological artifact
1object found in excavations
An old object found when people dig at an ancient place.
- The team cataloged each archaeological artifact before moving it to the lab.
- Coins and pottery fragments are common archaeological artifacts at the site.
- Local laws protect archaeological artifacts from being sold overseas.
build artifact
1file produced by a build
A file made by building software.
- The build artifact is attached to the release page for testers to download.
- Our pipeline keeps build artifacts for 30 days.
- They signed the build artifact before deploying it to production.
compression artifact
1distortion caused by compression
A bad effect in a photo/video caused by file compression.
- The sky shows compression artifacts because the image was saved at very low quality.
- To reduce compression artifacts, they increased the bitrate for the live stream.
- The audio codec introduced a faint compression artifact on cymbals.
cultural artifact
1object showing a culture
Something people made that shows their culture.
- Folk songs are important cultural artifacts as well as entertainment.
- The exhibition treats everyday tools as cultural artifacts worth preserving.
- Researchers discussed the game as a cultural artifact of the internet age.
imaging artifact
1false feature in a scan
Something in a scan that looks real but is caused by the scan.
- What looked like a small lesion was actually an imaging artifact.
- The report noted mild imaging artifacts due to metal in the patient’s jaw.
- Engineers adjusted the settings to minimize imaging artifacts.
motion artifact
1distortion caused by movement
A problem in an image caused by movement while taking it.
- The MRI had to be repeated because of motion artifact from the patient moving.
- The technician explained that the streaks were motion artifacts, not damage to the tissue.
- Using a faster shutter speed can reduce motion artifacts in handheld shots.