a. and sb. Also 6–8 sophistick, 7 -icke. [ad. L. sophistic-us, ad. Gr. σοφιστικός, f. σοφιστής SOPHIST. Hence also Sp. sofístico, It. soff-, sofistico, F. sophistique.]
A. adj. 1. Of persons: Given to the use or exercise of sophistry.
1549. Compl. Scot., xv. 137. I exort the … rather that thou accuse my tua sophistic brethir.
1711. Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), III. 79. The schools of the antient philosophers … came now to be dissolv’d, and their sophistick teachers became ecclesiastical instructers.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., Wks. 1808, V. 201. The sophistic tyrants of Paris are loud in their declamations against the departed regal tyrants.
1874. K. H. Digby, Temple Memory (1875), 329. As when sophistic sceptics would cry down Great Anaxagoras.
† b. Engaged in speculation. Obs.–1
1549. Compl. Scot., xvii. 145. At that tyme thai lay al to gydthir in ane cauerne, as dois presently the sophistic egiptiens.
2. Of or pertaining to sophistry or sophists; of the nature of sophistry or specious reasoning.
1591. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. i. 390. The sandy grounds of their Sophistick brawling.
1612. Webster, White Devil, II. ii. D 4. Some there are, Which by Sophisticke tricks, aspire that name … of Nigromancer.
1673. Milton, True Relig., 7. A mystery indeed in their Sophistic Subtilties, but in Scripture a plain Doctrin.
a. 1734. North, Examen, III. vi. § 23 (1740), 439. But he,… by his sophistic Terms, declares the latter only to bear the Bell.
1807. Anna Seward, Lett. (1811), VI. 348. He who rendered his rare eloquence the sophistic engine to infatuate his country.
1871. H. B. Forman, Our Living Poets, 119. [He] justifies himself to himself with sophistic satisfaction.
b. Pertaining to, characteristic of, the ancient Sophists.
1835. T. Mitchell, Acharn. of Aristoph., 392, note. λεπτὰ, a sophistic word, expressive of whatever is most subtle, ingenious, and acute in mental operation.
1874. Mahaffy, Soc. Life Greece, xi. 339. The outburst of the sophistic scepticism.
1885. Pater, Marius the Epicurean, I. 219. The undisputed occupant of the sophistic throne.
B. sb. 1. Sophistic argument or speculation as a subject of instruction. Also in pl. form.
1862. Merivale, Rom. Emp., lxvi. (1865), VII. 223. Of the three principal chairs,… that of Sophistics took the first rank.
1865. Grote, Plato, II. xxii. 96. Sophistic is the shadow or counterfeit of law-giving.
1881. Mahaffy, Old Greek Educ., xi. 143. Lecturers in sophistic and rhetoric.
2. Sophistry, deceptiveness.
1868. M. Pattison, Academ. Org., v. 222. I reject this as … reproducing the sophistic of ‘Testimonials’ in another form.
