sophisticate

verb

1. (transitive)To make (something) less innocent or natural; to artificialize.

   “The party to which Mrs. Berlinton was the loadſtone, was far more attractive to the diſciples of nature, though leſs ſedulouſly ſought by thoſe whom the manners and maxims of the common world had ſophiſticated.”

   “[T]hey were not the spoiled children of affectation and refinement, but a bold, vigorous, independent race of thinkers, with prodigious strength and energy, with none but natural grace, and heartfelt unobtrusive delicacy. They were not at all sophisticated.”

   “She was no scion of the English houses of Brown, Jones, or Robinson, born and bred in a London back slum, and christened plain Sarah or Mary, to be sophisticated later into Celestine or Mariette.”

2. (transitive)To make (something) more sophisticated (“complex, developed, or refined”); to develop, to refine.
3. (also, reflexive, transitive)To make (oneself or someone) more sophisticated (“experienced in the ways of the world, that is, cosmopolitan or worldly-wise”); to cosmopolitanize.
4. (also, figuratively, transitive)To alter and make impure (something) by mixing it with some foreign or inferior substance, especially with an intention to deceive; to adulterate; (generally) to corrupt or deceive (someone, their thinking, etc.).

   “How be it, it were harde to construe this lecture; Sophisticatid craftely is many a confecture; […]”

   “For there are diuers motiues, drawing men to fauour mightily thoſe opinions wherein their perſwaſions are but weakely ſetled: and if the paſſions of the minde be ſtrong, they eaſily ſophiſticate the vnderſtanding, they make it apt to beeleeue vpon very ſclender warrant and to imagine infallible truth where ſcarce any probable ſhew appeareth.”

   “This is my friend, Abel, an honeſt fellow, He let me haue good Tobacco, and he do's not Sophiſticate it, with Sack-lees, or Oyle, […]”

   “It is the manner of the world, and so it is of the "prince of the world," to sophisticate ever the best things with hypocrisy, with superstition, with a thousand devices more.”

   “to mingle or sophisticate any Wine here”

5. (transitive)To change the meaning of (something) in a deceptive or misleading way.

   “The heavy hand of the high Thunderer Shall light on thee; and thou I doubt ſhalt be His Furies object, and ſhalt teſtifie By thine infamous lifes accurſed ſtate, VVhat now thy ſhame-leſs lips ſophiſticate.”

   “His character and doctrines have received still greater injury from those who pretend to be his special disciples, and who have disfigured and sophisticated his actions and precepts from views of personal interest, so as to induce the unthinking part of mankind to throw off the whole system in disgust, and to pass sentence, as an impostor on the most innocent, the most benevolent, the most eloquent and sublime character that has ever been exhibited to man.”

6. (archaic, transitive)To apply an artificial technique to (something).

   “[T]hey ſit in ſome ſun-ſhining place in a chamber or ſome other ſecret roome, where hauing a looking-glaſſe before them they ſophiſticate and dye their haire with the foreſaid drugs, […]”

7. (intransitive)To practise sophistry (“the (deliberate) making of arguments that seem plausible but are fallacious or misleading”).

   “The benevolence of her heart taught her, in this inſtance, to ſophiſticate.”

   “Yet [Joseph] Butler professes to stick to plain facts, not to sophisticate, not to refine.”

adj

1. Synonym of sophisticated (adjective).
2. Synonym of sophisticated (adjective).
3. (obsolete)Synonym of sophisticated (adjective).

   “So truth, while only one ſupply'd the ſtate, Grew ſcarce, and dear, and yet ſophiſticate.”

4. (obsolete)Synonym of sophisticated (adjective).

noun

1. A person who is sophisticated (“experienced in the ways of the world, that is, cosmopolitan or worldly-wise”), or who has sophisticated tastes.

   “[…] the soporific details of Porter's socially correct marriage of convenience to wealthy and somewhat enigmatic Linda, "a professional beauty." They evidently shared a taste for high social status and the elegant luxuries, high life and freedoms afforded by wealth. Linda and Cole are portrayed as the ultimate sophisticates but the viewer is never told the cause for their separation or why they married.”

   “Patrick Star: Because classy sophisticates like us should not stain our lips with cursing. SpongeBob SquarePants: Yea verily!”