sophistry
a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning.
a false argument; sophism.
Origin of sophistry
1Other words from sophistry
- an·ti·soph·ist·ry, noun
Words Nearby sophistry
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use sophistry in a sentence
One of the arguments for intervention arising from the Syria strikes relies on a bit of sophistry.
What Israel's Attack Doesn't Mean For American Intervention In Syria | Ali Gharib | May 6, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTThe crucial thing is not that there are no forms of legal sophistry deployed in order to make these claims.
Even by the low standards of judicial sophistry, the opinion is a depressing exercise in bloviating certitude.
In Robert Bork’s Death, a Reminder of Scalia’s Inconsistency | Paul Campos | December 20, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTThe substitution of an effect for a cause is an old technique and trick of classical sophistry.
No amount of rouge will ever camouflage rhetoric and sophistry.
Letter to a Young Critic: William Giraldi Defends True Criticism | William Giraldi | September 5, 2012 | THE DAILY BEAST
In calmer moments his mind would doubtless have pierced the cheap sophistry of the Count, and discarded it.
The Everlasting Arms | Joseph HockingThey were polished men of society; not profound nor religious, but very brilliant as talkers, and very ready in wit and sophistry.
Beacon Lights of History, Volume I | John LordI have no sophistry to shift my reasons with; but the truth I trust I have, which needs no painted colours to set her forth.
Fox's Book of Martyrs | John FoxeThat there is “sophistry,” on one side or other, is certain; but now it matters not on which.
Mary Wollstonecraft | Elizabeth Robins PennellIt is but a mere contention—a bone, as the Persian proverb says, thrown to two dogs, a palpable piece of sophistry.
Islam Her Moral And Spiritual Value | Arthur Glyn Leonard
British Dictionary definitions for sophistry
/ (ˈsɒfɪstrɪ) /
a method of argument that is seemingly plausible though actually invalid and misleading
the art of using such arguments
subtle but unsound or fallacious reasoning
an instance of this; sophism
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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