Logic. Obs. [ad. L. crocodīlītēs.] Name of an ancient sophism: see quot. 1655.
[1551. T. Wilson, Logike (1580), 85 b. Crocodilites, is suche a kinde of subtiltie, that when we have graunted a thyng to our adversarie … the same tourneth to our harme afterwarde.]
1624. H. Mason, Art of Lying, ii. 35. This muddy Nylus so fertile of Crocodiles, I mean of this sophistique Crocodilites, whereby vnware men are ouer-reached and caught.
1655–60. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 316/2. The Crocodilite, so named from this Ægyptian Fable: A Woman sitting by the side of Nilus, a Crokodile snatch’d away her Child, promising to restore him, if she would answer truly to what he asked; which was, Whether he meant to restore him or not? She answer’d, Not to restore him, and challenged his promise, as having said the Truth. He reply’d, that if he should let her have him, she had not told true.
Hence Crocodility, ‘a captious or sophistical mode of arguing’ (Webster, 1848).
