subs. (Cambridge University).—A sophister: in U.S.A. sophomore; ‘a student beyond his first year’ (GROSE). The terms are 1st year, Freshman; 2nd year, Junior SOPH; 3rd year, Senior SOPH. See HARRY SOPH.
1719. D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy, vi. 200. I am a Jolly Toper, I am a raged SOPH.
1726. POPE, Dunciad, ii. 379. Three college SOPHS, and three pert Templars came.
1870. C. A. GOODRICH [WEBSTER Unabridged, s.v. SOPHOMORE]. This word, generally considered an ‘American barbarism,’ was probably introduced at a very early period from the university of Cambridge, England. Among the cant terms at that university, as given in the ‘Gradus ad Cantabrigiam’ [1803] we find SOPH-MOR. It is added that MOR = Gr., μωρία, introduced at a time when the Enconium Moriæ, the Praise of Folly by Erasmus, was so generally used. The ordinary derivation of the word from σοφὸς and μωρὸς would seem, therefore, to be incorrect [Abridged].
