sophisticate
/səˈfɪstɪkeɪt/
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.77 in modern English
Meaning
verb
To make (something) more sophisticated (“complex, developed, or refined”); to develop, to refine.
Transitive verb
verb
To make (oneself or someone) more sophisticated (“experienced in the ways of the world, that is, cosmopolitan or worldly-wise”); to cosmopolitanize.
Transitive verb
verb
To alter and make impure (something) by mixing it with some foreign or inferior substance, especially with an intention to deceive; to adulterate; (generally) to corrupt or deceive (someone, their thinking, etc.).
Transitive verb
verb
To practise sophistry (“the (deliberate) making of arguments that seem plausible but are fallacious or misleading”).
Intransitive verb
adj
Synonym of sophisticated (adjective).
Example Sentences
- "The party to which Mrs. Berlinton was the loadſtone, was far more attractive to the diſciples of nature, though leſs ſedulouſly ſought by thoſe whom the manners and maxims of the common world had ſophiſticated."
- "[T]hey were not the spoiled children of affectation and refinement, but a bold, vigorous, independent race of thinkers, with prodigious strength and energy, with none but natural grace, and heartfelt unobtrusive delicacy. They were not at all sophisticated."
- "She was no scion of the English houses of Brown, Jones, or Robinson, born and bred in a London back slum, and christened plain Sarah or Mary, to be sophisticated later into Celestine or Mariette."
- "Psychologists have developed quasi-causal theories to explain the directedness of behaviour, to answer the question ‘Why are certain sorts of reasons operative?’ and these theories may well have insinuated themselves into ordinary language as part of the meaning of “motive”. It might well be, therefore, that people who are slightly sophisticated by psychological theories assume some such necessary connexion [between giving the motive for an action and making any assertions of a causal kind about a man’s emotional state]."
- "How be it, it were harde to construe this lecture; Sophisticatid craftely is many a confecture; […]"
- "For there are diuers motiues, drawing men to fauour mightily thoſe opinions wherein their perſwaſions are but weakely ſetled: and if the paſſions of the minde be ſtrong, they eaſily ſophiſticate the vnderſtanding, they make it apt to beeleeue vpon very ſclender warrant and to imagine infallible truth where ſcarce any probable ſhew appeareth."
Etymology
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /səˈfɪstɪkeɪt/
- British English: /səˈfɪstɪkeɪt/