sophistry
nounUK /ˈsɒ.fɪ.stɹi/ · US /ˈsɑ.fɪ.stɹi/
Etymology From Middle English safistre, soffistre, sofystry, sophestrie, sophestry, sophestrye, sophistre, sophistri, sophistrie, sophistry, sophistrye, sophystrye, from Old French sofisterie, sophistrie and Medieval Latin sophistria, Anglo-Latin sophestria, from Latin sophista, from Ancient Greek σοφιστής (sophistḗs, “wise man”), from σοφίζω (sophízō, “to be wise”), from σοφός (sophós, “wise”), equivalent to sophist + -ry.
1
Historical The actions or arguments of a sophist.
- Such conduct is at any rate not sophistical, if Aristotle be right in describing sophistry as the art of making money.1844, Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments:
2
Plausible yet fallacious argumentation or reasoning.
3
An argument that seems plausible, but is fallacious or misleading, especially one devised deliberately to be so.
- And so he reasoned until the first generous impulse to proclaim the truth and relinquish his titles and his estates to their rightful owner was forgotten beneath the mass of sophistries which self-interest had advanced.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 99:
- Derived terms
- deipnosophistry
- Hyponyms
- rationalization, euhemerization