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Jan 16, 2014
This week's theme
Words to describe people

This week's words
voluble
intransigent
potentate
sophist
solicitous

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

sophist

PRONUNCIATION:
(SOF-ist)

MEANING:
noun: One who makes clever, but unsound arguments.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin sophista, from Greek sophistes (sage), from sophos (clever). Earliest documented use: 1542. In ancient Greece, Sophists were philosophers and teachers known for their subtle, but fallacious reasoning.

USAGE:
"But this day Mansoor had turned five, and Ma used a sophist's argument to call for a celebration."
M.G. Vassanji; The Assassin's Song; Doubleday; 2007.

See more usage examples of sophist in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Memoir is not an act of history but an act of memory, which is innately corrupt. -Mary Karr, (b. 1955) poet and memoirist

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