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)
-
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
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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
-
have been sophisticatingperfect progressive
-
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:
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
At school he was Toby the cool-cat sophisticate; and now, suddenly, he was Toby, the grief-stricken ancient Egyptian.
From "The Egypt Game" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
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
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
They moved to a small town, but they thought of themselves as cultural sophisticates, intelligent and liberal.
From Slate ● Apr. 8, 2020
We stood out among these city sophisticates in their sturdy lace-up shoes or good-looking pumps.
From "I Will Always Write Back" by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda
Two of the world’s most sophisticated equipment buyers, depreciating similar gear, landed six months apart on how long that gear lasts.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026
“The more sophisticated personalized pricing practices become, the less likely consumers are to benefit,” the commission added.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
The firm's shares jumped over 600 percent on opening, but the frenzy is very much a bet on the future, with commercial application of even the most sophisticated humanoids currently limited.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
United World responded on Tuesday, adding in a statement that "sophisticated and well-advised parties pay the price they agreed".
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
“Without them, we wouldn’t be reading German plans right now, when we need it most. Even Turing’s machine is basically a more sophisticated version of their bomba.”
From "The Bletchley Riddle" by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
Byron and Shelley were always sophisticating about their verses; Keats sophisticated about nothing.
From Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century by George Paston
Thus all sin is the overbearing of reason or the sophisticating of reason by passion.
From Expositions of Holy Scripture by Alexander Maclaren
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
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
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
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.
