Forms: α. 4–5 soffym(e, 5 sofyme; 4 sophim(e, 4–6 sophym(e, 5 -ymme. β. 4–6 sopheme (6 -em, 5 soffem-), 5–6 sopham, 7 sophom(e. γ. 6–7 sophisme (6 -ysme), 6– sophism. [a. OF. soff-, sophime, sof-, sophisme (mod.F. sophisme), or ad. L. sophisma (Sp. and It. sofisma, It. soff-, sofismo), a. Gr. σόφισμα a clever device, trick, argument, etc., f. σοφίζεσθαι to devise, f. σοφός wise, clever.]
1. A specious but fallacious argument, either used deliberately in order to deceive or mislead, or employed as a means of displaying ingenuity in reasoning.
α. c. 1350. Commem. Dead, 218, in Horstm., Altengl. Leg. (1881), 149. All þir resons þat þou here sese War my sophims and sotiltese.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. II. 288. Crist and his apostlis weren not moved bi þese sophymes. Ibid., III. 227. Þis is a foul soffyme, a foul and a sotil disceit.
c. 1440. Capgrave, Life St. Kath., II. 817. Late be youre sophym! your termes arn but sour!
1474. Caxton, Chesse, III. iv. (1883), 119. The conclusions and the sophyms of logyque.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., XI. (Percy Soc.), 42. Seven sophyms full hard and fallacyous.
1530. Palsgr., 173. Sophisme, a sophyme.
β. c. 1386. Chaucer, Sqr.’s T., 547. Ne couthe man by twenty thousand part Contrefete the sophemes of his art.
c. 1400. Rom. Rose, 7471. For men may finde alway sopheme The consequence to enveneme.
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, VIII. 1509. Wallace he herd the sophammis euiredeill.
1529. More, Dyalogue, III. Wks. 216/2. Setting wilkin alone with Simkin disputyng theyr sophem themself.
a. 1570. [see 1 b].
a. 1603. T. Cartwright, Confut. Rhem. N. T. (1618), 578. The Apostle had taken the measure of these words from their brawling and bawling Sophomes.
1642. Jer. Taylor, Episc. (1647), 378. Those few pigmy objections … are but like Sophoms to prove that two and two are not foure.
γ. 1532. More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. 541/1. To tourne their earnest godly sentence into friuolouse cauillacions, & sophismes.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 286. They stand in contention with their sophismes and captious conclusions.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 57. A captious Sophisme, made to intrap the ignorant.
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 157. How easie to impose Sophismes on one that knoweth no kind of Logick, or form of Reasoning!
1678. Gale, Crt. Gentiles, IV. III. 199. Here is in this objection a poor sophisme which they cal ‘no-cause for a cause.’
1753. Johnson, Adventurer, No. 85, ¶ 17. To fix the thoughts by writing … is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms.
1785. Reid, Intell. Powers, II. x. 281. Others thought that the argument from revelation was a mere sophism.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., v. I. 568. But no sophism is too gross to delude minds distempered by party spirit.
1875. Maine, Hist. Inst., xiii. 399. The proposition that men are by nature equal he expressly denounced as an anarchical sophism.
† b. spec. An argument of this kind serving as a University exercise. Also attrib. Obs.
1566. in Fowler, Hist. Corp. Chr. Coll. (O.H.S.), 112. Item, he harde no sophisme.
a. 1570. R. Morice, in Strype, Eccl. Mem., xxviii. (1721), III. 233. [Latimer] came into the Sopham School, among the Youth, there gathered together of Daily Custom to keep their Sophams and Disputations.
1579. Fulke, Heskins’ Parl., 475. For surely euery boy in Cambridge, that hath but once kept sophisme, would hisse at him for this assertion.
c. Without article: Sophistry.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), I. 37. Stripping it of all that sophism and equivocation wherewith it has been artfully overclouded.
1830. Sir J. Herschel, Stud. Nat. Phil., II. iii. 106. To defend their dogmas … by every art of sophism or appeal to passion.
1869. Pall Mall Gaz., 16 July, 10/1. Until excess of philosophy, sophism, and theorizing turned every Frenchman into an argumentative lunatic.
† 2. A device; a scheme. Obs.–1
1657. G. Thornley, Daphnis & Chloe, 113. Daphnis, who was of a more projecting wit then she, devised this Sophism to see her.
