| 释义 |
sophistry, n.|ˈsɒfɪstrɪ|
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. Specious but fallacious reasoning; employment of arguments which are intentionally deceptive.
1340Ayenb. 65 Ine huyche manyere þet me zuereþ, oþer openliche, oþer stilleliche be art, oþer be sophistrie. 1377Langl. P. Pl. B. xix. 343 Confessioun & contricioun..Shal be coloured so queyntly and keuered vnder owre sophistrie. 1426Lydg. De Guil. Pilgr. 5767 Tel on, as yt lyth in thy thouht, Wer yt deceyt or sophystrye. 1531Tindale Exp. 1 John (1537) 8 Can ye..persuade us, thynke ye, with your sophistry? 1582Bentley Mon. Matrones 71 Stopping the mouthes of the vnlearned with subtile..persuasions of..Sophistrie. 1639Habington Castara ii. (Arb.) 78 Who will with silent piety confute Atheisticke Sophistry, and by the fruite Approve Religions tree? 1684Bunyan Pilgr. ii. 108 This Maule did use to spoyl young Pilgrims with Sophistry. c1710Pope On Silence 40 The parson's cant, the lawyer's sophistry, Lord's quibble, critic's jest; all end in thee. 1777Priestley Phil. Necess. 186, I do not profess myself to be master of any uncommon art of detecting sophistry. 1825Lytton Falkland 65, I feel too well the sophistry of his arguments. 1871R. H. Hutton Ess. II. 226 Nothing can exceed the tortuous sophistry of this admirable special pleading.
Comb.1859Helps Friends in C. Ser. ii. II. ii. 25 His wearisome round of..dexterous sophistry-weaving.
b. An instance of this; a sophism.
1673Cave Prim. Chr. i. i. 9 By their villanies, sophistries, and arts of terrour. 1770Junius Lett. xxxviii. (1788) 209 Perplexed by sophistries, their honest eloquence rises into action. 1856Miss Mulock J. Halifax II. viii. 195 No sophistries of French philosophy on your part. 1876Farrar Marlb. Serm. xxxi. 311 To disentangle the soul from the fatal and subtle sophistries of sin.
2. The use or practice of specious reasoning as an art or dialectic exercise.
a1400–50Alexander 4364 Ne foloȝe we na ficesyens ne philisophour scolis, As sophistri & slik thing to sott with þe pepill. c1474Paston Lett. III. 408 Item, iij. bokes of soffistre. 1538Bale Thre Lawes 1167 We must haue sophystrye, Phylosophye and Logyck, as scyence necessarye. 1599B. 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. 1617Moryson Itin. iii. 51 The Milanesi are said to excell in the study of the Civill Law..those of Pavia in Sophistrie. 1677Gale Crt. Gentiles iii. 29 Aristotle..rendred his followers more skilful in hatching..wrangling sophistrie, than true solid Philosophie. 1864Bowen Logic ix. 267 The great use of disputation by the ancient sophists and the Schoolmen..tended to create a special art of sophistry.
†3. Cunning, trickery, craft. Obs.
c1385Chaucer L.G.W. Prol. 125 The foule cherl [sc. the fowler] that for his coueytyse, Hadde hem betrayed with his sophistrye. 1657G. Thornley Daphnis & Chloe 110 Others, with all their sophistry, made gins and traps for birds.
4. The type of learning characteristic of the ancient Sophists; the profession of a Sophist.
1837J. W. Donaldson Theat. Grks. (1849) 97 Euripides was nursed in the lap of sophistry. 1869A. W. Ward tr. Curtius' Hist. Greece II. iii. iii. 434 Sophistry became a profitable trade.
Hence † ˈsophistry v. trans., to maintain or argue sophistically. Obs.—1
1563Foxe A. & M. 268/2 Unto whome the Lorde Cobham thus aunswered, it is well sophistried of you forsoth. |