sophisticate
Americannoun
adjective
verb (used with object)
-
sophisticates,
present (3rd person singular)
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sophisticated,
past participle, past
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sophisticating
present participle
-
to make less natural, simple, or ingenuous; make worldly-wise.
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to alter; pervert.
to sophisticate a meaning beyond recognition.
verb (used without object)
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sophisticates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sophisticated,
past participle, past
-
sophisticating
present participle
verb
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(tr) to make (someone) less natural or innocent, as by education
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to pervert or corrupt (an argument, etc) by sophistry
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(tr) to make more complex or refined
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rare to falsify (a text, etc) by alterations
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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sophisticatesimple
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sophisticatessimple
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have sophisticatedperfect
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has sophisticatedperfect
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am sophisticatingprogressive
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are sophisticatingprogressive
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is sophisticatingprogressive
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have been sophisticatingperfect progressive
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has been sophisticatingperfect progressive
Past
-
sophisticatedsimple
-
had sophisticatedperfect
-
was sophisticatingprogressive
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were sophisticatingprogressive
-
had been sophisticatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sophisticate
1350–1400; Middle English (adj. and v.) < Medieval Latin sophisticātus (past participle of sophisticāre to tamper with, disguise, trick with words), equivalent to Latin sophistic ( us ) ( see sophistic) + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
To sophisticate is to make someone or something less innocent. A sophisticate is also a worldly, cultured person. The root soph in sophisticate has to do with knowledge, and if a person gets sophisticated, they learn new things, especially about the social world. Parents sophisticate their children by teaching them table manners. Going to college sophisticates many people by exposing them to new ideas and other cultures. After becoming sophisticated, people are less natural and innocent, but more cultured. A sophisticate is also a worldly person. Sophisticates do things like go to the opera and drink fine wine.
Vocabulary lists containing sophisticate
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He was an everyday guy who had fallen in love, not a highbrow sophisticate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 25, 2026
The late British author was a sophisticate with an eye for irony, influenced in large part by Monty Python’s random absurdities, P.G.
From Slate ● Nov. 7, 2023
Drake is a social media sophisticate, a fine walker of the almost completely obliterated line between fandom and creation.
From New York Times ● Jan. 23, 2023
Those who know Lee only as his Gi-hun character would barely recognize the dapper sophisticate sitting with excellent posture in a small greenroom.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2022
Johannesburg had always been depicted as a city of dreams, a place where one could transform oneself from a poor peasant to a wealthy sophisticate, a city of danger and of opportunity.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
With its expressionistic, skillfully lit pastels, “My Father’s Dragon” appears, at first, to be a high-tier cartoon for young sophisticates, as one might expect from the Oscar nominee Nora Twomey, who previously directed “The Breadwinner.”
From New York Times ● Nov. 10, 2022
Quirky sophisticates know a restaurant's specialties, including the choices that aren't listed on the menu.
From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2022
Dressing up each time helps relieve the stress of having to put her business on hold during the lockdown, she said, and is also just the natural state of the city’s fashion-conscious sophisticates.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 8, 2022
When Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony was new, it seemed to the sophisticates to have far less going for it than does Márquez’s concerto.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2021
He liked the idea of coffee quite a lot—a warm drink that gave you energy and had been for centuries associated with sophisticates and intellectuals.
From "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green
“There’s a sophisticated method to examine the strokes to examine how it was made and what kind of tools were used,” she added.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
Systematic strategies, employed by big hedge funds and some institutional managers, use sophisticated algorithms and data inputs to make investing decisions.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 12, 2026
Requirements on computing providers wouldn’t stop sophisticated actors from running harmful models on their own infrastructure.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
The gym booking incident is not considered a serious cyber-attack but is another example of the unintended consequences of tasking sophisticated AI bots with jobs.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
His absence from the Constitutional Convention was regretted by all—along with Madison he was regarded as America’s most sophisticated student of government.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
These were coached, in the usual masterly manner, sophisticating and perverting truth.
From Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked by C. H. Thomas
Sophisticā′tion, act of sophisticating, adulterating, or injuring by mixture; Sophis′ticātor, one who sophisticates or adulterates; Sophis′ticism, the philosophy or the methods of the sophists; Soph′istress, a she-sophist; Soph′istry, specious but fallacious reasoning.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various
It does so partly by sophisticating it—the sensibility to right and wrong being weakened by every evil act, as a cold in the head takes away the sense of smell.
From Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah and Jeremiah by Alexander Maclaren
In these aspects, at least, our shores are still primitive; they still know the primal force of wind and waves: there is no sophisticating, no taming of these.
From The Cornwall Coast by Arthur L. (Arthur Leslie) Salmon
We can in part; but our Lord has taught us in this prayer that it is not to be done by denying or sophisticating facts.
From Expositions of Holy Scripture Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII by Alexander Maclaren
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
