sophistication

From Middle English sophisticacion, sophisticacioun, sophisticacoun, from Old French sofisticacion, sophisticacion, from Medieval Latin sophisticātiōnis. By surface analysis, sophisticate +‎ -ion.

• IPA^(key): /səˌfɪs.tɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Hyphenation: so‧phis‧ti‧ca‧tion

sophistication (countable and uncountable, plural sophistications)

1. Enlightenment or education.
2. Cultivated intellectual worldliness; savoir-faire.
3. Deceptive logic; sophistry.
4. Falsification, contamination.
5. Complexity.

   The police force were unable to deal with the sophistication of the criminal network.

6. Ability to deal with complexity.
7. (archaic) The act of sophisticating; adulteration.

   Synonyms: pollution; see also Thesaurus:contamination

   the sophistication of drugs

   • 1663-1671, Robert Boyle, Considerations touching the Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy:

     how generally they [drugs] are adulterated by the fraudulent avarice of the feller ; especially when the sophistication is very gainful

• (antonym(s) of “cultivated intellectual worldliness”): provincialism

• oversophistication

• “sophistication”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “sophisticāciǒun, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
• “sophistication, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• “sophistication”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• IPA^(key): /sɔ.fis.ti.ka.sjɔ̃/

• Audio (Paris):

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• Audio (France (Lyon)):

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sophistication f (plural sophistications)

1. sophistication

• “sophistication”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012