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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)

98,828 entries. Headwords are matched first, then definition text.

9 words match “SOPHISTRY”

SOPHISTRY n. 2 definitions
ice of a sophist; fallacious reasoning; reasoning sound in appearance only. The juggle of sophistry consists, for the most part, in usig a word in one sense in the premise, and in another sense in the conclusion. Coleridge.
CHICANE n.
or question; -- specifically applied to legal proceedings; trickery; chicanery; caviling; sophistry. Prior. To shuffle from them by chicane. Burke. To cut short this, I propound it fairly to your own canscience. Berkeley.
CHICANERY n.
n or unfair artifice to perplex a cause and obscure the truth; stratagem; sharp practice; sophistry. Irritated by perpetual chicanery. Hallam.
CLEAVE v.
y skin. Ps. cii. 5. The diseases of Egypt . . . shall cleave unto thee. Deut. xxviii. 60. Sophistry cleaves close to and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects. Cowper.
EVADE v.
To attempt to escape; to practice artifice or sophistry, for the purpose of eluding. The ministers of God are not to evade and take refuge any of these . . . ways. South.
PHILOSOPHISM n.
Spurious philosophy; the love or practice of sophistry. Carlyle.
PHILOSOPHISTIC; PHILOSOPHISTICAL a.
Of or pertaining to the love or practice of sophistry. [R.]
SOPHISTER v.
To maintain by sophistry, or by a fallacious argument. [Obs.] obham.
SOPHISTIC; SOPHISTICAL a.
Of or pertaining to a sophist; embodying sophistry; fallaciously subtile; not sound. His argument . . . is altogether sophistical. Macaulay. -- So*phis"tic*al*ly, adv. -- So*phis"tic*al*ness, n.