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Counterfeit vs Synthetic - What's the difference?

counterfeit | synthetic |

As adjectives the difference between counterfeit and synthetic

is that counterfeit is false, especially of money; intended to deceive or carry appearance of being genuine while synthetic is of, or relating to synthesis.

As nouns the difference between counterfeit and synthetic

is that counterfeit is a non-genuine article; a fake while synthetic is a synthetic compound.

As a verb counterfeit

is to falsely produce what appears to be official or valid; to produce a forged copy of.

counterfeit

English

Adjective

(-)
  • False, especially of money; intended to deceive or carry appearance of being genuine.
    • This counterfeit watch looks like the real thing, but it broke a week after I bought it.
  • Inauthentic.
    • counterfeit sympathy
  • Assuming the appearance of something; deceitful; hypocritical.
  • * Shakespeare
    • an arrant counterfeit rascal

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A non-genuine article; a fake.
  • *c.1597 William Shakespeare, Henry IV part I, Act II, scene 4:
    • Never call a true piece of gold a counterfeit .
  • * Macaulay
    • Some of these counterfeits are fabricated with such exquisite taste and skill, that it is the achievement of criticism to distinguish them from originals.
  • One who counterfeits; a counterfeiter.
  • (obsolete) That which resembles another thing; a likeness; a portrait; a counterpart.
  • * William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens
    • Thou drawest a counterfeit / Best in all Athens.
  • * 1590 Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queene Book III, canto VIII:
    • Even Nature's self envied the same, / And grudged to see the counterfeit should shame / The thing itself.
  • (obsolete) An impostor; a cheat.
  • * c.1597 William Shakespeare, Henry IV part I, Act V, scene 4
    • I fear thou art another counterfeit ; / And yet, in faith, thou bear'st thee like a king.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To falsely produce what appears to be official or valid; to produce a forged copy of.
    • to counterfeit the signature of another, coins, notes, etc.
  • (obsolete) To produce a faithful copy of.
  • *
  • (obsolete) To feign; to mimic.
    • to counterfeit the voice of another person
  • * Oliver Goldsmith, The Village Schoolmaster
    • Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee / At all his jokes, for many a joke had he.
  • Of a turn or river card, to invalidate a player's hand by making a better hand on the board.

    • synthetic

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Of, or relating to synthesis.
  • (chemistry) Produced by synthesis instead of being isolated from a natural source (but may be identical to a product so obtained).
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= A new prescription , passage=As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.}}
  • Artificial, not genuine.
  • (grammar) Pertaining to the joining of bound morphemes in a word. Compare analytic.

    • Derived terms

    * nucleosynthetic * syntheticism

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A synthetic compound.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2007, date=January 14, author=Elsa Brenner, title=Art House to Get a Campus, work=New York Times citation
    • , passage=Only plastics and synthetics that cannot be recycled will end up in landfills, he said. }}