uplifting enlightenment

a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone

falsification by the use of sophistry; misleading by means of specious fallacies; " he practiced the art of sophistication upon reason"

the quality or character of being intellectually sophisticated through cultivation or experience or disillusionment

being expert or having knowledge of some technical subject; " understanding affine transformations requires considerable mathematical sophistication"

The act of sophisticating; adulteration; as, the sophistication of drugs.

Adulteration.

Act of sophisticating, adulterating, or injuring by mixture.

Act of adulterating, or of debasing the purity of anything by foreign admixture.

Adulteration; admixture; matter added.

Not being aware of the rarity of intelligence, energy, health, and willingness in any sphere of life, she refrained from seeking an indoor occupation; fearing towns, large houses, people of means and social sophistication, and of manners other than rural. – Tess of the d'Urbervilles A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

The characterization of this contemporary eclecticism or sophistication, difficult and uncertain as it must needs be, affords the best summary and interpretation with which to conclude this brief survey of the fortunes of philosophy. – The Approach to Philosophy by Ralph Barton Perry

It takes courage and sophistication to do that sort of thing. – T. Tembarom by Frances Hodgson Burnett

They have lived by every sort of infamous sophistication, and hatred of England has been one of their most conspicuous notes.... – The Letters of William James, Vol. II by William James

We cannot afford such sophistication yet. – Definitions by Henry Seidel Canby

The selfishness created by sophistication and a factitious state of things renders such acts quite frequent, for it is more my wish to offer you distinctive traits of character than exceptions. – Recollections of Europe by J. Fenimore Cooper

With all her sophistication, Tillie was vastly ignorant of life. – K by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Long afterward, when he had realized that the boy's life was to bring again and again a repetition of that sublime moment of realization- a moment of fulfillment unspoiled by surfeit or sophistication or a blunted capacity to marvel, which Caleb had seen grow old and stale even in the children he knew, he wondered and wished that he might have known it himself, once at least. – Then I'll Come Back to You by Larry Evans

She was a singularly attractive girl, combining a wholesome and quite unassumed innocence with a certain measure of sophistication, gained by daily contact with the free and easy life of the studios. – The Film of Fear by Arnold Fredericks

Sophistication clung to them, and weariness. – Carnival by Compton Mackenzie

Missy was, not sure that she knew what " sophisticated" meant, but she decided that the visiting girl's air of self- possession, of calm, almost superior assurance, denoted sophistication. – Missy by Dana Gatlin

No, the only thing this century has invented is the sophistication of products. – Là-bas by J. K. Huysmans

We haven't yet reached the point of sophistication, however, attained by a Paris cheese club that meets regularly. – The Complete Book of Cheese by Robert Carlton Brown

Back to the microscope for an explanation of the disease- process, a sophistication the Murnans had lost in the years since they'd left Kano. – Blind Man's Lantern by Allen Kim Lang

If he lacked the air of aristocratic calm which gave distinction to Judge Bannister, he supplied in its place a sophistication due to his contact with a world which moved faster than the Judge's world in Virginia. – The Trumpeter Swan by Temple Bailey

His sophistication was progressing, but it had not reached that point. – The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan

" Architecture is frozen music" does not enable us to understand either perpendicular Gothic or a fugue of Bach; and when an historian defines history in terms of philosophy, or a philosopher philosophy in terms of history, you may be on the lookout for sophistication. – The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 by Basil L. Gildersleeve

The next developments were concerned on the one hand with increasing the mathematical sophistication of the model, on the other hand with its mechanical complexity. – On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass by Derek J. de Solla Price