sb. Forms: 4 sophestrie, 4–7 sophistrie (5 -tri), 5–6 sophystrye (6 -trie), 5– sophistry: 5 safistre, soffistre, sofystry. [a. OF. sophistrie (mod.F. sophisterie, = Sp., It. sofisteria), or ad. med.L. sophistria: see SOPHIST and -RY.]

1

  1.  Specious but fallacious reasoning; employment of arguments that are intentionally deceptive.

2

1340.  Ayenb., 65. Ine huyche manyere þet me zuereþ, oþer openliche, oþer stilleliche be art, oþer be sophistrie.

3

1377.  Langl., P. Pl., B. XIX. 343. Confessioun & contricioun … Shal be coloured so queyntly and keuered vnder owre sophistrie.

4

1426.  Lydg., De Guil. Pilgr., 5767. Tel on, as yt lyth in thy thouht, Wer yt deceyt or sophystrye.

5

1531.  Tindale, Expos. 1 John (1537), 8. Can ye … persuade us, thynke ye, with your sophistry?

6

1582.  Bentley, Mon. Matrones, 71. Stopping the mouthes of the vnlearned with subtile … persuasions of … Sophistrie.

7

1639.  Habington, Castara, II. (Arb.), 78. Who will with silent piety confute Atheisticke Sophistry, and by the fruite Approve Religions tree?

8

1684.  Bunyan, Pilgr., II. 108. This Maule did use to spoyl young Pilgrims with Sophistry.

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c. 1710.  Pope, On Silence, 40.

          The parson’s cant, the lawyer’s sophistry,
  Lord’s quibble, critic’s jest; all end in thee,
All rest in peace at last, and sleep eternally.

10

1777.  Priestley, Phil. Necess., 186. I do not profess myself to be master of any uncommon art of detecting sophistry.

11

1825.  Lytton, Falkland, 65. I feel too well the sophistry of his arguments.

12

1871.  R. H. Hutton, Ess., II. 226. Nothing can exceed the tortuous sophistry of this admirable special pleading.

13

  Comb.  1859.  Helps, Friends in C., Ser. II. II. ii. 25. His wearisome round of … dexterous sophistry-weaving.

14

  b.  An instance of this; a sophism.

15

1673.  Cave, Prim. Chr., I. i. 9. By their villanies, sophistries, and arts of terrour.

16

1770.  Junius Lett., xxxviii. (1788), 209. Perplexed by sophistries, their honest eloquence rises into action.

17

1856.  Miss Mulock, J. Halifax, II. viii. 195. No sophistries of French philosophy on your part.

18

1876.  Farrar, Marlb. Serm., xxxi. 311. To disentangle the soul from the fatal and subtle sophistries of sin.

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  2.  The use or practice of specious reasoning as an art or dialectic exercise.

20

a. 1400–50.  Alexander, 4364. Ne foloȝe we na ficesyens ne philisophour scolis, As sophistri & slik thing to sott with þe pepill.

21

c. 1474.  Paston Lett., III. 408. Item, iij. bokes of soffistre.

22

1538.  Bale, Thre Lawes, 1167. We must haue sophystrye, Phylosophye and Logyck, as scyence necessarye.

23

1599.  B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev., V. iv. Though I … do want (as they say) logicke and sophistrie, and good words, to tell you why it is so.

24

1617.  Moryson, Itin., III. 51. The Milanesi are said to excell in the study of the Civil Law … those of Pavia in Sophistrie.

25

1677.  Gale, Crt. Gentiles, III. 29. Aristotle … rendred his followers more skilful in hatching … wrangling Sophistrie, than true solid Philosophie.

26

1864.  Bowen, Logic, ix. 267. The great use of disputation by the ancient sophists and the Schoolmen … tended to create a special art of sophistry.

27

  † 3.  Cunning, trickery, craft. Obs.

28

c. 1385.  Chaucer, L. G. W., Prol. 125. The foule cherl [sc. the fowler] that for his coueytyse, Hadde hem betrayed with his sophistrye.

29

1657.  G. Thornley, Daphnis & Chloe, 110. Others, with all their sophistry, made gins and traps for birds.

30

  4.  The type of learning characteristic of the ancient Sophists; the profession of a Sophist.

31

1837.  J. W. Donaldson, Theat. Grks. (1849). 97. Euripides was nursed in the lap of sophistry.

32

1869.  A. W. Ward, trans. Curtius’ Hist. Greece, II. III. iii. 434. Sophistry became a profitable trade.

33

  Hence † Sophistry v. trans., to maintain or argue sophistically. Obs.–1

34

1563.  Foxe, A. & M., 268/2. Unto whome the Lorde Cobham thus aunswered, it is well sophistried of you forsoth.

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