Poins to work at artificial language (3)
I believe the answer is:
ido
'artificial language' is the definition.
(Ido is an example)
'poins to work' is the wordplay.
'poins' becomes 'i' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'to work' becomes 'do' (synonyms).
'i'+'do'='IDO'
'at' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for ido that I've seen before include "Obscure language" , "Wedding vow" , "Naturally, nobody speaks this" , "Prepared tongue" , "Words made up" .)