n. The controversial method of an opponent, distinguished from one's own by superior insincerity and fooling. This method is that of the later Sophists, a Grecian sect of philosophers who began by teaching wisdom,prudence, science, art and, in brief, whatever men ought to know, but lost themselves in a maze of quibbles and a fog of words.
Ambrose Bierce. The Devil's Dictionary
► uses
Uses:
"No, excuse me, that’s a paradox."
"Yes, there's something of a sophistry about that," Veslovsky agreed.
Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina (Translated by Constance Garnett)
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I mean not to cavil with you, as one loving sophistry : neither to control you, as one having superiority, the one would bring my talk into the suspicion of fraud, the other convince me of folly.