1. The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance: "Any field using the skills or techniques of art; including, advertising art and industrial art."
2. The class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria: "The works of art collectively, including paintings, sculptures, or drawings; such as, a museum of art; an art collection."
3. A field, genre, or category of what is attractive: "Dance is an art that Sara loves."

"The fine arts collectively, often excluding architecture."

4. Illustrative or decorative materials: "Do you have any art work to illustrate your web site?"
5. The principles or methods governing any craft or branch of learning: "The art of baking and the art of selling."
6. Skill in conducting any human activity: "Trisha is a master at the art of conversation."

"Art is skilled workmanship, execution, or agency, as distinguished from nature."

7. A branch of learning or university study: "Joseph is studying one of the fine arts or the humanities; including music, philosophy, and literature."
8. Etymology: from about 1225, "skill as a result of learning or practice", from Old French art, from Latin artem, ars, "art, skill, craft"; from base ar-, "fit together, join".

In Middle English, usually with the sense of "skill in scholarship and learning" (c.1305); especially, in the seven sciences, or liberal arts (divided into the trivium: grammar, logic, rhetoric; and the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy). This sense remains in Bachelor of Arts, etc.

The meaning, "human workmanship" (as opposed to nature) is from 1386. The sense of "cunning and trickery" was first attested about 1600. The meaning, "skill in creative arts" is first recorded 1620; especially, regarding painting, sculpture, etc., from 1668.

In fine arts, "those which appeal to the mind and the imagination" was first recorded in 1767. Arts and crafts, "decorative design and handcraft" was presented in the "Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society", founded in London, in 1888.

The arts that are concerned with the production of high-quality objects which are both useful and beautiful: Susan was majoring in decorative arts at the vocational institute.

The fine and applied arts of representation, decoration, and writing or printing on flat surfaces together with the techniques and crafts associated with each one; including painting, drawing, engraving, etching, lithography, photography, and the arts of printing.

1. A subject of study in schools with the objectives of developing the manual and technical skills that are required to work with tools and machinery.
2. An educational subject which teaches students how to work with tools and machines: "His favorite high school class, or subject, was industrial arts."

Greek: Muses (goddesses); Calliope (eloquence and epic poetry, Clio (history), Erato (erotic lyric poetry), Euterpe (music and lyric poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Urania (astronomy)
Latin: Camenae (nymphs); who possess prophetic powers and inhabit springs and fountains; later identified with the Greek Muses.