sophistication

From Middle English sophisticacion, sophisticacioun, sophisticacoun, from Old French sofisticacion, sophisticacion and Medieval Latin sophisticātio, -iōnis.

• IPA^(key): /səˌfɪs.tɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/

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sophistication (countable and uncountable, plural sophistications)

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

   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

• IPA^(key): /sɔ.fis.ti.ka.sjɔ̃/

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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.