Sophomore - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

SOPHOMORE, the name in American universities (corresponding to "sophister" at Cambridge, England, and Trinity College, Dublin) for a student who has completed his first year of academic studies. It is a corruption of the earlier "sophimore," due to a supposed derivation from v04 6s, wise, and pWpos, foolish, alluding to the air of wisdom assumed by students after their freshman's year was concluded. The earlier word "sophimore" (cf. "Laws of Yale Coll., 1774," in Hall's College Words) represents "sophismer," a doublet of "sophister," and means an arguer or debater (cf. the Cambridge use of "wrangler"), and is formed from the Greek o-60tvµa, sophism, an ingenious or captious argument.