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SOPHOMORE
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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 vocbbr, wise, and µiopos, 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 oo4ivaµa, sophism, an ingenious or captious argument.