sophism
(ˈsɒfɪz(ə)m)
Forms: α. 4–5 soffym(e, 5 sofyme; 4 sophim(e, 4–6 sophym(e, 5 -ymme. β. 4–6 sopheme (6 -em, 5 soffem-), 5–6 sopham, 7 sophom(e. γ. 6–7 sophisme (6 -ysme), 6– sophism.
[a. OF. soff-, sophime, sof-, sophisme (mod.F. sophisme), or ad. L. sophisma (Sp. and It. sofisma, It. soff-, sofismo), a. Gr. σόϕισµα a clever device, trick, argument, etc., f. σοϕίζεσθαι to devise, f. σοϕός wise, clever.]
1. A specious but fallacious argument, either used deliberately in order to deceive or mislead, or employed as a means of displaying ingenuity in reasoning.
| α c 1350 Commem. Dead 218 in Horstm. Altengl. Leg. (1881) 149 All þir resons þat þou here sese War my sophims and sotiltese. c 1380 Wyclif Serm. Sel. Wks. II. 288 Crist and his apostlis weren not moved bi þese sophymes. Ibid. III. 227 Þis a foul soffyme, a foul and a sotil disceit. c 1440 J. Capgrave Life St. Kath. ii. 817 Late be youre sophym! your termes arn but sour! 1474 Caxton Chesse iii. iv. (1883) 119 The conclusions and the sophyms of logyque. 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. xi. (Percy Soc.) 42 Seven sophyms full hard and fallacyous. 1530 Palsgr. 173 Sophisme, a sophyme. |
| β c 1386 Chaucer Sqr.'s T. 547 Ne couthe man by twenty thousand part Contrefete the sophemes of his art. c 1400 Rom. Rose 7471 For men may finde alway sopheme The consequence to enveneme. c 1470 Henry Wallace viii. 1509 Wallace he herd the sophammis euiredeill. 1529 More Dyalogue iii. Wks. 216/2 Setting wilkin alone with Simkin disputyng theyr sophem themself. a 1570 [see 1 b]. a 1603 T. Cartwright Confut. Rhem. N.T. (1618) 578 The Apostle had taken the measure of these words from their brawling and bawling Sophomes. 1642 Jer. Taylor Episc. (1647) 378 Those few pigmy objections..are but like Sophoms to prove that two and two are not foure. |
| γ 1532 More Confut. Tindale Wks. 541/1 To tourne their earnest godly sentence into friuolouse cauillacions, & sophismes. 1576 Fleming Panopl. Epist. 286 They stand in contention with their sophismes and captious conclusions. 1615 Crooke Body of Man 57 A captious Sophisme, made to intrap the ignorant. 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 157 How easie to impose Sophismes on one that knoweth no kind of Logick, or form of Reasoning! 1678 Gale Crt. Gentiles iv. iii. 199 Here is in this objection a poor sophisme which they cal ‘no-cause for a cause’. 1753 Johnson Adventurer No. 85 ¶17 To fix the thoughts by writing..is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms. 1785 Reid Intell. Powers ii. x. 281 Others thought that the argument from revelation was a mere sophism. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. v. I. 568 But no sophism is too gross to delude minds distempered by party spirit. 1875 Maine Hist. Inst. xiii. 399 The proposition that men are by nature equal he expressly denounced as an anarchical sophism. |
† b. spec. An argument of this kind serving as a University exercise. Also
attrib. Obs.| 1566 in Fowler Hist. Corp. Chr. Coll. (O.H.S.) 112 Item, he harde no sophisme. a 1570 R. Morice in Strype Eccl. Mem. xxviii. (1721) III. 233 [Latimer] came into the Sopham School, among the Youth, there gathered together of Daily Custom to keep their Sophams and Disputations. 1579 Fulke Heskins' Parl. 475 Euery boy in Cambridge, that hath but once kept sophisme, would hisse at him for this assertion. |
c. Without article: Sophistry.
| 1768–74 Tucker Lt. Nat. (1834) I. 37 Stripping it of all that sophism and equivocation wherewith it has been artfully overclouded. 1830 Herschel Study Nat. Phil. ii. iii. 106 To defend their dogmas..by every art of sophism or appeal to passion. 1869 Pall Mall G. 16 July 10 Until excess of philosophy, sophism, and theorizing turned every Frenchman into an argumentative lunatic. |
† 2. A device; a scheme.
Obs.—1| 1657 G. Thornley Daphnis & Chloe 113 Daphnis, who was of a more projecting wit then she, devised this Sophism to see her. |