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sophist|ˈsɒfɪst|
[ad. L. sophista, sophistēs, ad. Gr. σοϕιστής, f. σοϕίζεσθαι to become wise or learned. Hence also Sp. and It. sofista, F. sophiste.]
1. In ancient Greece, one specially engaged in the pursuit or communication of knowledge; esp. one who undertook to give instruction in intellectual and ethical matters in return for payment.
In the latter sense contrasted with philosopher, and freq. used as a term of disparagement.
1542Udall Erasm. Apophthegms 14 b, Sophistes at the fyrst begynnyng wer men that professed to bee teachers of wisedome and eloquence, and the name of Sophistes was had in honoure and price. 1547Baldwin Mor. Philos. 1 b, The Grecians..naming it first ‘sophia’, & such as therein were skilled, sophistes or wisards. 1605Bacon Adv. Learning ii. 54 b, Not onely in the persons of the Sophists, but euen in Socrates himselfe. 1638Junius Paint. Ancients 98 As well sculpters and painters.., as Sophists and Rhetoricians. 1699Bentley Phal. Introd. 6 The very Sophists themselves..have declar'd him no Sophist, but a Philosopher. 1763J. Brown Poetry & Music vi. 137 In later Times it became a common Practice for Sophists and Rhetoricians to contend in Prose, at the Olympic Games, for the Crown of Glory. 1835T. Mitchell Acharn. of Aristoph. 717 note, Socrates having ironically addressed the two boasting and ridiculous sophists..as gods. a1842Arnold Later Hist. Rome (1846) II. xii. 451 The profession of a Sophist was a legal exemption from the duties of a juryman. 1864Bowen Logic ix. 267 The great use of disputation by the ancient sophists and the Schoolmen, as a logical exercise and a means of education.
2. One who is distinguished for learning; a wise or learned man.
1614Sylvester Bethulia's Rescue ii. 320 Whose prudent Problems, touching every Theam, Draw thousand Sophists to Jerusalem. 1645Bp. Hall Treat. Content. 88 Those Indian sophists who took their name from their nakednesse. 1727N. Lardner Wks. (1838) I. 131 There were in the city two sophists..(or rabbies) who were reckoned exceedingly skilful in the laws of their country. 1794T. Taylor Pausanias' Descr. Greece III. 321 For this god is a sophist, who purifies souls after death. 1812Byron Ch. Har. ii. vi, Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, People this lonely tower, this tenement refit? a1857R. A. Vaughan Ess. & Rem. (1858) I. 46 If we may credit some of our sophists, it [religion] descended from heaven like some of the deified stones of antiquity.
3. One who makes use of fallacious arguments; a specious reasoner.
1581G. Pettie tr. Guazzo's Civ. Conv. i. (1586) 34 You knowe also that we naturallie hate cauillers and Sophists, who at euerie word will ouerthwart us. 1771Beattie Minstr. i. xli, Hence! ye, who snare and stupify the mind, Sophists, of beauty, virtue, joy, the bane! 1774Reid Aristotle's Logic i. §1 (1788) 5 The pride and vanity of the sophist appear too much in his writings. 1820L. Hunt Indicator No. 26 (1822) I. 201 It is only for sophists to pretend that we, whose eyes contain the fountains of tears, need never give way to them. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. vi. II. 7 Nor, it was said, had the speculations of this odious school of sophists [Roman Catholic casuists] been barren of results. 1871B. Taylor Faust (1875) I. xi. 136 Thou art and thou remain'st a sophist, liar.
fig.1828Lytton Pelham III. ix, Our passions are terrible sophists!
b. attrib. or in appositive use.
c1730Savage Character Wks. 1775 II. 209 Whose savage mind wants sophist-art to draw O'er murder'd virtue specious veils of law. 1847Emerson Poems, Good-bye Wks. (Bohn) I. 416, I laugh..At the sophist schools. 1852M. Arnold Empedocles ii. 29 Before the Sophist brood hath overlaid The last spark of man's consciousness with words. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 43 The style gets the better of the thought in the Sophist-poet Euripides. |