Sophistry
noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The actions or arguments of a sophist. historical, uncountable
"Such conduct is at any rate not sophistical, if Aristotle be right in describing sophistry as the art of making money."
- 2 a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone wordnet
- 3 Plausible yet fallacious argumentations or reasoning. uncountable
- 4 An argument that seems plausible, but is fallacious or misleading, especially one devised deliberately to be so; a sophism. countable
"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."
Example
More examples"You can adduce studies and reports all you like, but their sophistry will always win out."
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, “I am wise”), from σοφός (sophós, “wise”), equivalent to sophist + -ry.
More for "sophistry"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.