colloq. [Abbreviation of SOPHISTER and SOPHOMORE.]
1. = SOPHISTER 3. (In early use also at Oxford.)
1661. K. W., Conf. Charac., College Butler (1860), 68. Did you but see him dominere over a freshman,… when they come to be sophs the pump is his reward for his insolencies.
1684. Wilding, in Collect. (O.H.S.), I. 260. For being created Sen. Soph,… 00 00 06.
1691. Alicia D’Anvers, Academia, 6.
| These kindly hug young Soph, and squeeze him, | |
| And of his Cash t’ a Farthing ease him. |
1713. Byrom, Rem. (1854), I. I. 20. There is one Law, a M.A., and Fellow of Emmanuel, has this last week been degraded to a Soph, that is, the Year below a Bachelor.
1740. Gray, in W. Mason, Mem., I. 266. The furniture much like that of a Soph at Cambridge for convenience and neatness.
1794. Gentl. Mag., Dec., 1084. One was a Harry Soph; another a fellow-commoner and senior soph.
1841. Peacock, Stat. Cambr., 146. The exercises in the Sophs’ schools for the degree of bachelor of arts have been altogether abandoned.
1871. ‘M. Legrand,’ Cambr. Freshm., xix. 322. No longer a Freshman proper, but in all the budding dignity of a Junior Soph.
transf. 1860. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., clxxvii. III. 214. The Romans, senior sophs in their day, ever put their veterans in third line.
2. U.S. = SOPHOMORE 1 b.
1778. Stiles, Diary (1901), II. 277. I appointed Stevens a Soph. Waiter in the Hall.
1860. [Bristed], Macm. Mag., II. July, 224/1. These sophomores, or sophimores, or sophs (the usual abbreviation will serve to compromise the difference in orthography) have the traditional reputation of being the chief actors in such small amount of larking as goes on at Yale.
1890. Gunter, Miss Nobody, i. 8. They have come from Yale by train, singing that old-time glee with which the Sophs used to taunt the Freshes.
