The dictionary defines artifact as:


  artefact, artifact [ˈɑːtɪˌfækt]
  n
  
  
  something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest
  anything man-made, such as a spurious experimental result
  (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Biology) Cytology a structure seen in tissue after death, fixation, staining, etc., that is not normally present in the living tissue
  


The word artifact often appears in software development, software development cycles, effort estimation, etc. But the above definition doesn't make sense to me in that context.

Could someone please explain this word by giving some specific examples from software industry?

In software development life cycle (SDLC), artifact usually refers to "things" that are produced by people involved in the process. Examples would be design documents, data models, workflow diagrams, test matrices and plans, setup scripts, ... like an archaeological site, any thing that is created could be an artifact. 

In most software development cycles, there's usually a list of specific required artifacts that someone must produce and put on a shared drive or document repository for other people to view and share.
