| 释义 |
sophistication|səfɪstɪˈkeɪʃən|
Also 5 -icac(i)oun, -ycacyon, 5–7 -icacion.
[a. OF. sophistication, or ad. med.L. sophisticātio, -ācio, f. sophisticāre sophisticate v.]
1. a. The use or employment of sophistry; the process of investing with specious fallacies or of misleading by means of these; falsification.
c1400Apol. Loll. 7 And, sin sophisticacoun falliþ ofte in þis matir, feiþful men askyn..þis witnes. 1451J. Capgrave Life St. Aug. 10 Þe woman..coude not be led oute fro hir trewe beleue with no sophisticacion þat hir son coude make. c1530More Answ. Frith Wks. 835/1 For such kind of sophisticacion in arguing, was the very cauillacion and shift that the wicked Arrians vsed. 1597Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. lxxxi. §2 Bending therevnto their whole endeuour without eyther fraud, sophistication or guyle. 1678Norris Misc. (1699) 182 The Law of Nature he only restored and rescued from the Sophistications of ill Principles. 1791Mrs. Radcliffe Rom. Forest iii, Hers were the arts of cunning practised upon fear, not those of sophistication upon reason. 1846Ruskin Mod. Paint. II. iii. §1. vi. §8 Happily ignorant of the sophistications of theories and the proprieties of composition. 1882M. E. Braddon Mt. Royal I. i. 29 If you asked her opinion upon any subject you got it, without sophistication.
b. A sophism, a quibble, a fallacious argument.
1491Caxton Vitas Patr. (W. de W. 1495) ii. 176 b/2, The dyuyne scyence Requyreth not to be fulfylled with sophistycacyons nor proposycyons ornate or polyshed. 1548Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. Luke v. 55 The subtiltees of the Philosophiers sophisticacions. 1581J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osar. 503 b, The Argument..is worthely rejected in the Logicians Schoole, and is called a meere Sophistication. 1635Swan Spec. M. i. §1 (1643) 2 Whose reasons some have called vain sophistications to obscure the truth. a1676Hale Prim. Orig. Man. ii. xii. (1677) 244 These Traditions have been admirably dressed by Sophistications and Superadditions. 1783W. F. Martyn Geogr. Mag. I. 186 Replete with sophistications and interpolations. 1819L. Hunt Indicator No. 6 (1822) I. 46 But they are both as rank sophistications as can be; mere beggings of the question. 1892W. S. Lilly Gt. Enigma 141 If we put aside sophisms and sophistications.
fig.1618Stukeley Petition 2 This mans whole life was a meere sophistication. 1630Tincker of Turvey, Gentl. T. 80 He..thought schollers..could deuise many sophistications to make a man a cuckold.
2. a. Disingenuous alteration or perversion of something; conversion into some less genuine form; the alteration of a literary text in the course of copying or printing.
1564Brief Exam. *iij b, The sophistication of the arguments of that discourse. 1647N. Ward Simple Cobler 58 The sophistication of Religion and Policie in your time. 1672Dryden Conq. Granada Def. Epil. 168 That is a Sophistication of Language, not an improvement of it. 1860Hawthorne Marble Faun (1879) II. ii. 25 Before the sophistication of the human intellect formed what we now call language. 1892T. K. Cheyne in Expositor 217 The sophistication of our native good sense. 1956Studies in Bibliogr. VIII. 10 The paucity of ‘em's in the pages set by Compositor B represents the compositor's sophistication of copy. 1963[see sophisticated ppl. a. 2 a]. 1981Times Lit. Suppl. 10 July 793/2 It [sc. the Folio] also makes numerous minor alterations, many of them literary sophistications.
b. Deceptive modification.
1664Evelyn tr. Freart's Archit. ii. viii. 108 This Colossean Structure..had need of some Sophistications from the optiques.
c. The quality or fact of being sophisticated; esp. (a) worldly wisdom or experience; subtlety, discrimination, refinement; (b) knowledge, expertise, in some technical subject.
1850L. Hunt Autobiog. III. xix. 49 A people who..preserve in the very midst of their sophistication a frankness distinct from it. 1884St. James's Gaz. 9 Sept. 6/2 No more simple and guileless folk can well be found, in these days of sophistication. 1915New Republic 16 Jan. 27/1 As to semi-education, the assumption is sound enough, and Dr. Burton's chapters on method and structure, on development and climax and ending, are honest first aids to sophistication. 1934C. Lambert Music Ho! ii. 112 In spite of his dazzling and outward sophistication Stravinsky is essentially primitive and naïve. 1951R. Firth Elem. Social Organization v. 163 When we talk..of primitive Greek art..we are referring..to art that is distinguished primarily by being earlier in time, though it..also bears the character of lack of sophistication. 1964E. Bach Introd. Transformational Gram. vii. 145 The reader of the standard linguistic journals is apt to find articles..that demand considerable mathematical sophistication on his part. 1971J. B. Carroll et al. Word Freq. Bk. p. xxi/1 Complete understanding of the lognormal model requires considerable mathematical sophistication. 1977R. Williams Marxism & Lit. ii. iv. 99 Mediation, in this range of use, then seems little more than a sophistication of reflection.
d. The property or condition (of a thing) of being highly developed or complicated; technical refinement.
1959Time 12 Oct. 67/3 In the past the usual comment was that Russian space vehicles are big and brawny because of more powerful launching rockets, but that U.S. space vehicles, small and elegant, made up for the Russians' gross size by their sophistication. 1972L. Alcock By South Cadbury viii. 195 Elaborate arrangements to maintain the defences and their garrisons demonstrate the administrative sophistication of Late Saxon England. 1972Practical Motorist Oct. 162/1 On more modern cars, sophistication is now so far advanced that the linkage would virtually require specialist attention!
(b) concr. An instance of this; a technically advanced characteristic.
1973Nature 9 Nov. 109/2 The range stretches from relatively simple systems such as bacterial flagella and plant viruses..towards bacterial spores and the more complex sophistications of ribosomes, cell walls and mitochondria. 1976Early Music Oct. 451/2 Instamatics cost..over {pstlg}50 with built-in light meter and other sophistications.
3. a. An adulterated article; a fraudulently mixed form of something. b. A substance used in adulteration.
c1400Mandeville (Roxb.) vii. 26 Þe Sarezenes makes swilke sophisticaciouns for to dessayfe Cristen men withall... Marchandes also and apothecaries puttes þerto oþer sophisticaciouns. 1620Melton Astrolog. 7 As meere a Mountebanke, as euer sold Sophistications in Italy or the Low-Countries. 1670Pettus Fodinæ Reg. 45 They might see and inspect those Impostures and Sophistications so destructive to Commutative Justice. 1683― Fleta Min. ii. 4 Which really are not pure, but mixt with other sophistications. 1875Encycl. Brit. I. 172/1 The chief sophistications of ginger powder are sago-meal, ground rice, and turmeric. 1886Daily Telegr. 20 Mar. (Cassell), The sophistications of or substitutes for butter sold in the metropolitan and urban markets.
4. a. Adulteration (of commodities, etc.).
1540–1Elyot Image Gov. 74 To haue alway all necessary drougges..without sophistication or other deceite. 1567J. Maplet Gr. Forest 9 In this kinde as in al others we must take heed of Sophistication. 1601Holland Pliny II. 86 Nothing is so subject to sophistication as Saffron. 1654T. Whitaker Blood of Grape (ed. 2) 107 The principal difficulty wilbe in obteining pure wine with out sophistication. 1707Sloane Jamaica I. 223 Drugsters usually adulterate musk with these, which sophistication is known by its small continuance. 1789India Officer's Pocket-Guide Purch. Drugs (ed. 2) 55 Few drugs are more liable to sophistication than musk. 1823J. Badcock Dom. Amusem. 98 Tobacco..is rendered still more pungent by the sophistications..of the manufacturers. 1853Ure Dict. Arts (ed. 4) I. 263 The sophistication is easily detected by the microscope. 1871G. H. Napheys Prevent. & Cure Dis. i. ii. 70 Food free from sophistication.
fig.1593G. Harvey New Lett. Notable Contents A iij, Publique medicines will admit no sophistication.
b. Const. of (an article, etc.).
1562W. Bullein Bulwarke, Bk. Simples 72 b, But there is muche craft and sophistication of the Camphor. 1662Charleton & P. M. Myst. Vintners (1675) 203 In the close of his chapter touching the Sophistication of wines. 1820F. Accum Treat. Adult. Food (title-p.), The Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer,..and other Articles. 1880Daily Telegr. 24 June, An unscrupulous dealer whose sophistication of silver plate was more ingenious..than the mere forgery of a hall-mark. |