sophisticate
Americannoun
adjective
verb (used with object)
-
sophisticates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sophisticated,
past participle, past
-
sophisticating
present participle
-
to make less natural, simple, or ingenuous; make worldly-wise.
-
to alter; pervert.
to sophisticate a meaning beyond recognition.
verb (used without object)
-
sophisticates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sophisticated,
past participle, past
-
sophisticating
present participle
verb
-
(tr) to make (someone) less natural or innocent, as by education
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to pervert or corrupt (an argument, etc) by sophistry
-
(tr) to make more complex or refined
-
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
-
have been sophisticatingperfect progressive
-
has been sophisticatingperfect progressive
Past
-
sophisticatedsimple
-
had sophisticatedperfect
-
was sophisticatingprogressive
-
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:
As anchored as he is to Beirut, she is a transnationally minded sophisticate who is in a major hurry to move to Germany.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
It pulls people in on the promise of speaking effortless French in a Parisian bakery, on being a sophisticate with the drive to learn another language.
From Slate ● Jul. 25, 2023
With a virgin piña colada in my hand, I was no longer a silly little girl in a Laura Ashley dress, but a budding sophisticate sipping a fancy cocktail with maraschino cherry-stained red lips.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 11, 2022
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
And then, to make matters worse, I heard my mother saying to Waverly: “True, cannot teach style. June not sophisticate like you. Must be born this way.”
From "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan
There’s no quiz show in “Age of Vice,” but there is a poor boy who slides through a backdoor into a demimonde of degraded sophisticates.
From New York Times ● Jan. 5, 2023
Low rates serve financial sophisticates: Such rates send torrents of money in search of higher yields into the stock market.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 17, 2022
But her honest voice and honest cooking caused Manhattan and Brooklyn sophisticates to clamor for her beautifully prepared Southern food.
From Salon ● May 25, 2022
They moved to a small town, but they thought of themselves as cultural sophisticates, intelligent and liberal.
From Slate ● Apr. 8, 2020
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
Claims from Nvidia that its China business had collapsed after the U.S. imposed export restrictions on the most sophisticated Nvidia chips also helped to pique his interest.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 10, 2026
And he must also live with the irony that he was potentially caught out not by a sophisticated high-tech sting, but by the oldest trick in the book: a honey trap.
From BBC ● Nov. 9, 2026
Aziz, whose workshop manufacturing the robots is located in Multan in Pakistan's central Punjab province, hopes to make his creations more sophisticated in the future.
From Barron's ● Nov. 8, 2026
“You can really show that you’re a global citizen and that you’re a sophisticated foodie by having congee for breakfast, or shakshuka,” Forrest says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 7, 2026
Jake sniffed the air the way a sophisticated connoisseur might.
From "The Smartest Kid in the Universe" by Chris Grabenstein
Next is a woe on those who play fast and loose with plain morality, sophisticating conscience, and sapping the foundations of law.
From Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah and Jeremiah by Alexander Maclaren
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
But the time is short; there is none to waste on idle questionings, none to spend on sophisticating conscience—time only for deciding as conscience bids.
From The Expositor's Bible: The Gospel of St John, Vol. II by Marcus Dods
As a rule, such colours when manufactured in England may be fairly assumed to be genuine; and certainly the respectable colourmen of the present day are not in the habit of sophisticating them.
From Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists by Thomas Salter
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
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