sophisticate
Americannoun
adjective
verb (used with object)
-
to make less natural, simple, or ingenuous; make worldly-wise.
-
to alter; pervert.
to sophisticate a meaning beyond recognition.
verb (used without object)
verb
-
(tr) to make (someone) less natural or innocent, as by education
-
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
- outsophisticate verb (used with object)
- sophistication noun
- sophisticator noun
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 ) ( sophistic ) + -ātus -ate 1
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.
He was an everyday guy who had fallen in love, not a highbrow sophisticate.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 25, 2026
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
She worked hard to sophisticate him, getting him out of his hideous cheap blue suits and into respectable tweeds, refining his Midwestern accent.
From New York Times • Dec. 31, 2021
As Burrows told the New York Times in 1983, the trio “wanted to create a show around a Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy-type relationship” between a sophisticate and an average Joe.
From Slate • Jun. 22, 2020
He is a sophisticate, a weekend denizen of New York’s theater district, a clotheshorse.
From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove
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.
