Artex is a British trade name that became, in the UK, the ordinary word for a thick, pasty coating people spread on inside ceilings and sometimes walls. It is like a very heavy paint with lots of small hard bits in it, so the surface dries with a rough pattern — swirls, stipple, little peaks — rather than a smooth white sheet. From about the 1960s to the 1980s it was extremely common in British houses; many people still live under it. Though actually, it is a brand that slipped into everyday speech, the way some places say Hoover for any vacuum cleaner. You will hardly meet it in American English, and it is not a chemistry word. In Britain there is also a quiet worry: some older mixes are said to have had asbestos in them, so people are often told not to sand or scrape it themselves. Younger British speakers still recognise the ceiling; they may never have bought a tin.

英國天花板厚顆粒塗料的品牌名；台灣沒有通用俗稱，可想成一種凹凸的造型漆／噴紋漆