Definition of "sophister"

A subtle traitor needs no sophister.

1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene i]

[…] I wil not be afraid to saie vnto a Pope or Cardinall in this plight, be of good comfort, we haue to doe with a mercifull God; rather to make the best of a little which we hold well, and not with a captious sophister, which gathereth the worst out of everie thing, wherein wee erre.

1612, Richard Hooker, A Learned Discourse of Iustification, Workes, and How the Foundation of Faith is Overthrowne‎, Oxford, page 62

The same sophisters make it a question whether life can ever be an evil? but when we consider the multitude of errors, torments, and vices, with which it abounds, one would rather be inclined to doubt whether it can ever be a blessing.

1783, David Hume (ascribed), Essays on Suicide, and the Immortality of the Soul, London: M. Smith, Letter 114, p. 74

I remember when you were a boy you wished to make your fine new whip a present to old aunt Peggy, merely because she admired it; and now, with like unreflecting and unappropriate liberality, you would resign your beloved to a smoke-dried young sophister, who cares not one of the hairs which it is his occupation to split for all the daughters of Eve.

1824 June, [Walter Scott], “Letter 13”, in Redgauntlet, […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., page 295

Burke said the age of the economist was also the age of the sophister.

1973, William D. Grampp, “Classical Economics and Its Moral Critics”, in History of Political Economy, volume 5, pages 359–374

In the older American colleges, the junior and senior classes were originally called Junior Sophisters and Senior Sophisters. The term is also used at Oxford and Dublin.

1851, Benjamin Homer Hall, College Words and Customs‎, Cambridge, Mass.: John Bartlett, page 287