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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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