Also 5 -icac(i)oun, -ycacyon, 5–7 -icacion. [a. OF. sophistication, or ad. med.L. sophisticātio, -ācio, f. sophisticāre SOPHISTICATE v.]
1. The use or employment of sophistry; the process of investing with specious fallacies or of misleading by means of these; falsification.
c. 1400. Apol. Loll., 7. And, sin sophisticacoun falliþ ofte in þis matir, feiþful men askyn … þis witnes.
1451. Capgrave, Life St. Aug., 10. Þe woman … coude not be led oute fro hir trewe beleue with no sophisticacion þat hir son coude make.
c. 1530. More, Answ. Frith, Wks. 835/1. For such kind of sophisticacion in arguing, was the very cauillacion and shift that the wicked Arrians vsed.
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. lxxxi. § 2. Bending therevnto their whole endeuour without eyther fraud, sophistication or guyle.
1678. Norris, Misc. (1699), 182. The Law of Nature he only restored and rescued from the Sophistications of ill Principles.
1791. Mrs. Radcliffe, Rom. Forest, iii. (1792), 91. Her’s were the arts of cunning practised upon fear, not those of sophistication upon reason.
1846. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., II. III. § 1. vi. § 8. Happily ignorant of the sophistications of theories and the proprieties of composition.
1882. Miss Braddon, Mt. Royal, I. i. 29. If you asked her opinion upon any subject you got it, without sophistication.
b. A sophism, a quibble, a fallacious argument.
1491. Caxton, Vitas Patr. (W. de W., 1495), II. 176 b/2. The dyuyne scyence Requyreth not to be fulfylled with sophistycacyons nor proposycyons ornate or polyshed.
1548. Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. Luke v. 55. The subtiltees of the Philosophiers sophisticacions.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 503 b. The Argument … is worthely rejected in the Logicians Schoole, and is called a meere Sophistication.
1635. Swan, Spec. M., i. § 1 (1643), 2. Whose reasons some have called vain sophistications to obscure the truth.
a. 1676. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., II. xii. (1677), 244. These Traditions have been admirably dressed by Sophistications and Superadditions.
1783. W. F. Martyn, Geogr. Mag., I. 186. Replete with sophistications and interpolations.
1819. L. Hunt, Indicator, No. 6 (1822), I. 46. But they are both as rank sophistications as can be; mere beggings of the question.
1892. W. S. Lilly, Gt. Enigma, 141. If we put aside sophisms and sophistications.
fig. 1618. Stukeley, Petition, 2. This mans whole life was a meere sophistication.
1630. Tincker of Turvey, Gentl. T., 80. He … thought schollers … could deuise many sophistications to make a man a cuckold.
2. Disingenuous alteration or perversion of something; conversion into some less genuine form.
1564. Brief Exam., * iij b. The sophistication of the arguments of that discourse.
1647. N. Ward, Simple Cobler, 58. The sophistication of Religion and Policie in your time.
1672. Dryden, Conq. Granada, Def. Epil. 168. That is a Sophistication of Language, not an improvement of it.
1860. Hawthorne, Marble Faun (1879), II. ii. 25. Before the sophistication of the human intellect formed what we now call language.
1892. T. K. Cheyne, in Expositor, 217. The sophistication of our native good sense.
b. Deceptive modification.
1664. Evelyn, trans. Freart’s Archit., II. viii. 108. This Colossean Structure … had need of some Sophistications from the optiques.
c. (See SOPHISTICATE v. 1 c.)
1850. L. Hunt, Autobiog., III. xix. 49. A people who … preserve in the very midst of their sophistication a frankness distinct from it.
1884. St. James’s Gaz., 9 Sept., 6/2. No more simple and guileless folk can well be found, in these days of sophistication.
3. a. An adulterated article; a fraudulently mixed form of something. b. A substance used in adulteration.
c. 1400. Maundev. (Roxb.), vii. 26. Þe Sarezenes makes swilke sophisticaciouns for to dessayfe Cristen men withall…. Marchandes also and apothecaries puttes þerto oþer sophisticaciouns.
1620. Melton, Astrolog., 7. As meere a Mountebanke, as euer sold Sophistications in Italy or the Low-Countries.
1670. Pettus, Fodinæ Reg., 45. They might see and inspect those Impostures and Sophistications so destructive to Commutative Justice. Ibid. (1683), Fleta Min., II. 4. Which really are not pure, but mixt with other sophistications.
1875. Encycl. Brit., I. 172/1. The chief sophistications of ginger powder are sago-meal, ground rice, and turmeric.
1886. Daily Telegr., 20 March (Cassell). The sophistications of or substitutes for butter sold in the metropolitan and urban markets.
4. Adulteration (of commodities, etc.).
1540–1. Elyot, Image Gov., 74. To haue alway all necessary drougges … without sophistication or other deceite.
1567. Maplet, Gr. Forest, 9. In this kinde as in al others we must take heed of Sophistication.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 86. Nothing is so subject to sophistication as Saffron.
1654. T. Whitaker, Blood of Grape (ed. 2), 107. The principal difficulty wilbe in obteining pure wine with out sophistication.
1707. Sloane, Jamaica, I. 223. Drugsters usually adulterate musk with these, which sophistication is known by its small continuance.
1789. India Officer’s Pocket-Guide Purch. Drugs (ed. 2), 55. Few drugs are more liable to sophistication than musk.
1823. J. Badcock, Dom. Amusem., 98. Tobacco … is rendered still more pungent by the sophistications … of the manufacturers.
1853. Ure, Dict. Arts (ed. 4), I. 263. The sophistication is easily detected by the microscope.
1871. Napheys, Prev. & Cure Dis., I. ii. 70. Food free from sophistication.
fig. 1593. G. Harvey, New Lett. Notable Contents, A iij. Priuate medicines are often adulterate: but publique medicines will admit no sophistication.
b. Const. of (an article, etc.).
1562. Bullein, Bulwarke, Bk. Simples, 72 b. But there is muche craft and sophistication of the Camphor.
1662. Charleton & P. M., Myst. Vintners (1675), 203. In the close of his chapter touching the Sophistication of wines.
1820. F. Accum, Treat. Adult. Food (title-p.), The Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer,… and other Articles.
1880. Daily Telegr., 24 June, 7/1. An unscrupulous dealer whose sophistication of [silver] plate was more ingenious and more mischievous than the mere forgery of a hall-mark.
