[ad. L. sophista, sophistēs, ad. Gr. σοφιστής, f. σοφίζεσθαι to become wise or learned. Hence also Sp. and It. sofista, F. sophiste.]
1. In ancient Greece, one specially engaged in the pursuit or communication of knowledge; esp. one who undertook to give instruction in intellectual and ethical matters in return for payment.
In the latter sense contrasted with philosopher, and freq. used as a term of disparagement.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apophthegms, 14 b. Sophistes at the fyrst begynnyng wer men that professed to bee teachers of wisedome and eloquence, and the name of Sophistes was had in honoure and price.
1547. Baldwin, Mor. Philos., A ii. Ye Gretians … naming it first Sophia, and suche as therein were skilled Sophistes or wysardes.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learning, II. 54 b. Not onely in the persons of the Sophists, but euen in Socrates himselfe.
1638. Junius, Paint. Ancients, 98. As well sculpters and painters…, as Sophists and Rhetoricians.
1699. Bentley, Phal., Introd. 6. The very Sophists themselves … have declar’d him no Sophist, but a Philosopher.
1763. J. Brown, Poetry & Mus., vi. 136. In later Times it became a common Practice for Sophists and Rhetoricians to contend in Prose, at the Olympic Games, for the Crown of Glory.
1835. T. Mitchell, Acharn. of Aristoph., 717, note. Socrates having ironically addressed the two boasting and ridiculous sophists … as gods.
a. 1842. Arnold, Later Hist. Rome (1846), II. xii. 451. The profession of a Sophist was a legal exemption from the duties of a juryman.
1864. Bowen, Logic, ix. 267. The great use of disputation by the ancient sophists and the Schoolmen, as a logical exercise and a means of education.
2. One who is distinguished for learning; a wise or learned man.
1614. Sylvester, Bethulia’s Rescue, II. 320. Whose prudent Problems, touching every Theam, Draw thousand Sophists to Jerusalem.
1645. Bp. Hall, Treat. Content., 88. Those Indian sophists who took their name from their nakednesse.
1727. N. Lardner, Wks. (1838), I. 131. There were in the city two sophists … (or rabbies) who were reckoned exceedingly skilful in the laws of their country.
1794. T. Taylor, Pausanias’ Descr. Greece, III. 321. For this god is a sophist, who purifies souls after death.
1812. Byron, Ch. Har., II. vi. Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?
a. 1857. R. A. Vaughan, Ess. & Rem. (1858), I. 46. If we may credit some of our sophists, it [religion] descended from heaven like some of the deified stones of antiquity.
3. One who makes use of fallacious arguments; a specious reasoner.
1581. Pettie, trans. Guazzo’s Civ. Conv., I. 34. You know also that we naturally hate cauillers and Sophists, who at euery woorde will ouerthwart vs.
1771. Beattie, Minstr., I. xli. Hence! ye, who snare and stupify the mind, Sophists, of beauty, virtue, joy, the bane!
1774. Reid, Aristotle’s Logic, i. § 1 (1788), 5. The pride and vanity of the sophist appear too much in his writings.
1820. L. Hunt, Indicator, No. 26 (1822), I. 201. It is only for sophists to pretend that we, whose eyes contain the fountains of tears, need never give way to them.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vi. II. 7. Nor, it was said, had the speculations of this odious school of sophists [Roman Catholic casuists] been barren of results.
1871. B. Taylor, Faust (1875), I. xi. 136. Thou art and thou remain’st a sophist, liar.
fig. 1828. Lytton, Pelham, III. ix. Our passions are terrible sophists!
b. attrib. or in appositive use.
c. 1730. Savage, Character, Wks. 1775, II. 209. Whose savage mind wants sophist-art to draw O’er murder’d virtue specious veils of law.
1847. Emerson, Poems, Good-bye, Wks. (Bohn), I. 416. I laugh … At the sophist schools.
1852. M. Arnold, Empedocles, II. 29. Before the Sophist brood hath overlaid The last spark of man’s consciousness with words.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 43. The style gets the better of the thought in the Sophist-poet Euripides.
