Sample sentences for SOPHISTRY

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Definition

seemingly believable, but invalid arguments that display ingenuity in reasoning

Where facts failed her, she used sophistry.

sophistry = the use of seemingly believable, but invalid arguments that display ingenuity in reasoning

Any other explanation is sophistry.
"Humphrey, that is all sophistry, and you know it," said his wife.
Eliot, George -- Middlemarch
Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
Jostein Gaarder -- Sophie's World

sophistry = the use of seemingly believable, but invalid arguments that display ingenuity in reasoning

He sees that they consistently are doing exactly that which they accuse the Sophists of doing...using emotionally persuasive language for the ulterior purpose of making the weaker argument,
Robert M. Pirsig -- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

sophists = people who use seemingly believable, but invalid arguments that display ingenuity in reasoning

Coulde no man, by twenty thousand
Counterfeit the sophimes* of his art; *sophistries, beguilements
Geoffrey Chaucer -- The Canterbury Tales

sophistries = invalid arguments that are seemingly believable and display ingenuity in reasoning

Are they in harmony with the sympathies of Christ? or are they swayed and perverted by the sophistries of worldly policy?
Harriet Beecher Stowe -- Uncle Tom's Cabin
"Humphrey, that is all sophistry, and you know it," said his wife.
George Eliot -- Middlemarch
It presented itself to her, with no sophistry upon it, in its own plain nature.
Charles Dickens -- Little Dorrit
That face on which the condor Thought has fed, arched with high subtle malice, sophist glee.
Thomas Wolfe -- Look Homeward, Angel
*d [Footnote d: A strange sophism has been made on this head in France.
Alexis de Toqueville -- Democracy In America, Volume 2
For once, they put the sophistry aside and used a little common sense.
Scott Pratt -- An Innocent Client
"Yes, there's something of a sophistry about that," Veslovsky agreed.
Leo Tolstoy -- Anna Karenina
The great threats to the nation, Adams warned, were sophistry, the spirit of party, and "the pestilence of foreign influence."
David McCullough -- John Adams
You always come back to my point, in spite of your wrigglings and evasions and sophistries, not to mention the intolerable length of your speeches.
George Bernard Shaw -- Man And Superman
If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical — is false.
Charlotte Bronte -- Jane Eyre
FAUST Thou art, and thou remain'st, a sophist, liar.
Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) -- Faust
"Save your sophistry Lucian," said the Inquisitor.
Cassandra Clare -- City of Ashes
He did not exactly suspect the secret objects of Muir, but he was far from being blind to his sophistry.
James Fenimore Cooper -- The Pathfinder
I gave an impatient shrug at such sophistry.
H.G. Wells -- The Island of Dr. Moreau

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