sophistic
sophistic adjective: synonym of sophistical, of or related to the ancient Sophists, characterized by fallacious reasoning.
Adjective (1)
sophistic (comparative more sophistic, superlative most sophistic)
- Synonym of sophistical, of or related to the ancient Sophists, characterized by fallacious reasoning.
- […] he is simply translating into Marxian terms the Sophistic view “that the more powerful will always take advantage of the weaker, and will give the name of law and justice to whatever they lay down in their own interests.”2004, Brian Leiter, “The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud”, in Brian Leiter, editor, The Future for Philosophy, →ISBN, page 84
- Synonyms:
- sophistical, of or related to the ancient Sophists, characterized by fallacious reasoning
Noun (1)
sophistic
- The supposed beliefs and methods of the Sophists, taken as a kind of school of thought.
- But when we consider his wish to reconcile Philosophy and Rhetoric, it must be remembered that, if the new Sophistic differed in most of its essential features from the Sophistic of Plato’s contemporaries, it was Philosophy as conceived by Isocrates rather than Plato that Themistius had in mind.1896, Wilmer Cave Wright, The Emperor Julian’s Relation to the New Sophistic and Neo-Platonism: With a Study of His Style, page 19
- Rather, to use Whitman’s phrase, Sophokles “thought through” a great deal more of the sophistic than their attacks on religion or their fascination with religion.1995, Peter W. Rose, Sons of the Gods, Children of Earth: Ideology and Literary Form in Ancient Greece, →ISBN, page 272
- Synonyms:
- sophism
Adjective (2) capitalized: Sophistic
Sophistic (comparative more Sophistic, superlative most Sophistic)
- Alternative letter-case form of sophistic (“pertaining to the sophists”).
Noun (2) capitalized: Sophistic
Sophistic
- Alternative letter-case form of sophistic.
Synonyms of sophistic
- sophistical
- of or related to the ancient Sophists
- characterized by fallacious reasoning
- sophism
Forms of sophistic
| comparative | more sophistic |
|---|---|
| superlative | most sophistic |
| alternative form | Sophistic |
| comparative | more Sophistic |
| superlative | most Sophistic |
Origin of sophistic
Learned borrowing from Latin sophisticus, borrowing of Ancient Greek σοφιστικός (sophistikós). Equivalent to sophist + -ic and sophism + -istic.
Words formed from sophistic
Questions about sophistic
- What does sophistic mean?
- Sophistic means synonym of sophistical, of or related to the ancient Sophists, characterized by fallacious reasoning.
- What part of speech is sophistic?
- Sophistic can be an adjective or a noun.
Words near sophistic in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sophistic (page history and authors); Sophistic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “sophistic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sophistic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.