sophistic

variants or sophistical

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of sophistic The characters are treated with odd touches of realism and their sophistic arguments are stingingly psychologized. Charles McNulty, latimes.com, 8 Sep. 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for sophistic
Adjective
  • Paramount settled a lawsuit by Trump against CBS News and 60 Minutes generally considered specious and winnable for $16 million as the company sought government approval for its sale to Skydance, which came shortly after.
    Jill Goldsmith, Deadline, 18 Sep. 2025
  • Inside, the layout is streamlined and intuitive, with a door-in-door compartment for quick grabs, a specious full-width drawer, and a three-tier organization system in the freezer.
    Bailey Berg, Architectural Digest, 29 Aug. 2025
Adjective
  • He has been criticized for making unscientific and misleading statements, including COVID-19 misinformation and promoting conspiracy theories, and affirming antisemitic, racist, and transphobic comments.
    Miranda Jeyaretnam, Time, 28 Oct. 2025
  • Murphy said that’s misleading because many incidents never make it into official statistics.
    Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, FOXNews.com, 28 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • The study, published on the research platform arXiv, found that once the models were allowed to vary their bets and set their own targets, irrational behavior surged — and bankruptcy became a common outcome.
    Jesus Mesa, MSNBC Newsweek, 22 Oct. 2025
  • Poetry brings hope, not an irrational optimism or wishful thinking, but a positive orientation to the future, of what a better, healthier future would look like.
    K.J.S. “Sunny” Anand, Time, 15 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • Word also, unfortunately, retains some seemingly illogical features from versions that date back several decades.
    PC Magazine, PC Magazine, 18 Oct. 2025
  • The film had transformed from the messy, illogical version I’d first seen into a hilarious, shrewd, contemplative work of art.
    Susan Orlean, New Yorker, 11 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • There is a widespread but fallacious perception that India's tariffs are inordinately high.
    Mohan Kumar, MSNBC Newsweek, 31 Aug. 2025
  • The same economists who believe in the same fallacious economic notions?
    John Tamny, Forbes.com, 6 July 2025
Adjective
  • Mid-century collective behavior theories considered social movements to be nonrational, spontaneous events occurring during moments of social and cultural breakdown.
    The Editors, JSTOR Daily, 10 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • The letter came in response to a September argument from the CPSC that the launching of a new rule-compliant product undermined the argument that the rule was unreasonable.
    MSNBC Newsweek, MSNBC Newsweek, 27 Oct. 2025
  • This is not unreasonable in the least.
    R. Eric Thomas, Mercury News, 26 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • Let sound political prescience but take the place of an unreasoning prejudice, and this will be done.
    Frederick Douglass, The Atlantic, 16 Aug. 2017

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Cite this Entry

“Sophistic.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sophistic. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.

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