View synonyms for sophist

sophist

[ sof-ist ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

(often initial capital letter) Greek History.
1. any of a class of professional teachers in ancient Greece who gave instruction in various fields, as in general culture, rhetoric, politics, or disputation.
2. 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.
a person who reasons adroitly and speciously rather than soundly.
a philosopher.

sophist

/ ˈsɒfɪst /

often capital one of the pre-Socratic philosophers who were itinerant professional teachers of oratory and argument and who were prepared to enter into debate on any matter however specious
a person who uses clever or quibbling arguments that are fundamentally unsound

Origin of sophist¹

1535–45; < Latin sophista < Greek sophistḗs sage, derivative of sophízesthai

Origin of sophist¹

C16: from Latin sophista, from Greek sophistēs a wise man, from sophizesthai to act craftily

If his Ethicist gig ever winds up feeling too constricting, he can always launch a column called The Sophist.

He traces the Sophist by descending subdivision from the acquisitive genus of art.

The Sophist is a hunter of walking animals: which may be divided into two classes, wild and tame.

Again, we may find the Sophist by descending through a different string of subordinate classes from the genus — Acquisitive Art.

The application of this Elenchus is the work of the Sophist, looked at on its best side.

The Sophist is traced down, from the genus of separating or discriminating art.

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