sophisticate
Americannoun
adjective
verb (used with object)
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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)
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
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sophisticatedsimple
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had sophisticatedperfect
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was sophisticatingprogressive
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were sophisticatingprogressive
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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:
An otherwise urban-dwelling sophisticate, he cultivated a rustic demeanor for France’s benefit, uncharacteristically donning a coonskin hat and simple clothes to impress cosseted aristocrats and ordinary Parisians alike.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 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
He is a sophisticate, a weekend denizen of New York’s theater district, a clotheshorse.
From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove
In 2006, My Chemical Romance — by then, an edgy screamo band turned ostentatious pop-punk dramatists — released “The Black Parade,” a flashy and theatrical opus that established the group as art-house emo sophisticates.
From New York Times ● Sep. 11, 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
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
Lincoln emerges as a folksy, aphorism-spouting backwoods lawyer whose virtuosic political skills outstrip those of all the sophisticates around him.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 10, 2020
Three years among the sophisticates of Girton had not provided her with the courage to confront him.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Giving it greater plasticity could make it easier to manufacture and allow engineers to create more sophisticated structures for engines and other high-performance systems.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 31, 2026
The area of law has always been ripe for fraud, but the hustles have evolved, getting more sophisticated in the past year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
Killer whales are highly intelligent apex predators and have been known to play with their prey and deploy sophisticated tactics to ensnare them.
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
Birdsong is one of the natural world's most sophisticated forms of sound-based communication.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
Their presence marks the beginning not of discovery itself but of a culture of discovery, a culture which was now shared by government-office holders and sophisticated clergymen.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Thus all sin is the overbearing of reason or the sophisticating of reason by passion.
From Expositions of Holy Scripture by Maclaren, Alexander
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 Thomas, C. H.
Nothing comes to him, not spoiled by the sophisticating medium of moral uses.
From The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Lamb, Charles
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 Salter, 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
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.
