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sophist - 4 dictionary results

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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Sophist

Soph"ist\, n. [F. sophiste, L. sophistes, fr. Gr. ?. See Sophism.]

1. One of a class of men who taught eloquence, philosophy, and politics in ancient Greece; especially, one of those who, by their fallacious but plausible reasoning, puzzled inquirers after truth, weakened the faith of the people, and drew upon themselves general hatred and contempt.

Many of the Sophists doubdtless card not for truth or morality, and merely professed to teach how to make the worse appear the better reason; but there scems no reason to hold that they were a special class, teaching special opinions; even Socrates and Plato were sometimes styled Sophists. --Liddell & Scott.

2. Hence, an impostor in argument; a captious or fallacious reasoner.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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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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