Množina: sophists

In ancient Greece, one of a group of 5th-century BC itinerant lecturers on culture, rhetoric, and politics. Skeptical about the possibility of achieving genuine knowledge, they applied bogus reasoning and were concerned with winning arguments rather than establishing the truth. Plato regarded them as dishonest and sophistry came to mean fallacious reasoning.

Množina: Sophists

A philosopher who seeks paradoxes, or one who advances ideas that seem inconsistent with common sense.

ETYM Latin sophisticus, Greek: cf. French sophistique.
Plausible but misleading; SYN. sophistical.

1. Pertaining to the Sophists.
2. Relying on paradoxical logic.

Množina: sophisticates

A worldly-wise person; SYN. man of the world.

1. To alter with the intention to deceive; SYN. doctor, doctor up, adulterate.
2. To make less natural or innocent.
3. To make more complex or refined

1. Having or appealing to those having worldly knowledge and refinement and savoir faire
2. Intellectually appealing
3. Marked by wide-ranging knowledge and appreciation of many parts of the world arising from urban life and wide travel

Množina: sophistications

ETYM Cf. Late Lat. sophisticatio, French sophistication.
The quality or character of being intellectually sophisticated through cultivation or experience or disillusionment; SYN. worldliness.

SIngular of sophistries is sophistry.

Množina: sophistries

ETYM Old Eng. sophistrie, Old Fren. sophisterie.
1. The art or process of cunning, often fallacious reasoning.
2. The practice of a sophist; fallacious reasoning; reasoning that is sound in appearance only.

Singular of sophists is sophist.