sophistication (so fist i kas hon)

[Early mod. E. sophistic a cion; = Sp. so fistic a cion = Pg. sophistic ação = It. so fistic azione, Skill in special pleading and ingenuity in sophistication. Mrs. Cowden Clarke. (0) The proce of perverting or misleading by sophistry; hence, loosely, any perversion or wresting from the proper course; a leading or going astray. From both kinds of practical perplexity again are to be distinguished those self- sophistications which arise from a desire to find excuses for gratifying unworthy inclinations, T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, § 314. (c) Adulteration; debasement by means of a foreign admixture. A subtile discouery of outlandish merchants fraud, and of the sophistication of their wares. Hakluyt's Voyages , To the Reader. 2. A sophism; a quibble; a specious fallacy. Tyndalles tryflinge sophistic a cions, whyche he woulde shoulde see me so solempne subtile insolubles, ye shall se proued very frantique folyes. Sir T. More, Works (ed. 1557), I. 355. 3. That which is adulterated or not genuine; the product of adulteration.-4. A means of adulteration; any substance mixed with another for the purpose of adulteration. The chief sophistications of ginger powder are sago-meal, ground rice, and turmeric. Encyc. Brit., I. 172.