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Sophist

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soph⋅ist

  [sof-ist]
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–noun
1. (often initial capital letter) Greek History.
a. any of a class of professional teachers in ancient Greece who gave instruction in various fields, as in general culture, rhetoric, politics, or disputation.
b. a person belonging to this class at a later period who, while professing to teach skill in reasoning, concerned himself with ingenuity and specious effectiveness rather than soundness of argument.
2. a person who reasons adroitly and speciously rather than soundly.
3. a philosopher.
Origin:
1535–45; < L sophista < Gk sophists sage, deriv. of sophízesthai
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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soph·ist   (sŏf'ĭst)   
n.  

    1. One skilled in elaborate and devious argumentation.

    2. A scholar or thinker.

  2. Sophist Any of a group of professional fifth-century B.C. Greek philosophers and teachers who speculated on theology, metaphysics, and the sciences, and who were later characterized by Plato as superficial manipulators of rhetoric and dialectic.


[Middle English sophiste, from Latin sophista, from Greek sophistēs, from sophizesthai, to become wise, from sophos, clever.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

sophist 
1542, earlier sophister (c.1380), from L. sophista, sophistes, from Gk. sophistes, from sophizesthai "to become wise or learned," from sophos "wise, clever," of unknown origin. Gk. sophistes came to mean "one who gives intellectual instruction for pay," and, contrasted with "philosopher," it became a term of contempt. Ancient sophists were famous for their clever, specious arguments.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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