| Library / English Dictionary |
SOPHISTICATED
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Ahead in development; complex or intricate
Example:
a sophisticated electronic control system
Synonyms:
advanced; sophisticated
Classified under:
Similar:
hi-tech; high-tech (resembling or making use of highly advanced technology or devices)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Intellectually appealing
Example:
a sophisticated drama
Classified under:
Similar:
intellectual (appealing to or using the intellect)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Having or appealing to those having worldly knowledge and refinement and savoir-faire
Example:
a sophisticated book
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
blase; worldly (very sophisticated especially because of surfeit; versed in the ways of the world)
intelligent; well-informed (possessing sound knowledge)
polished; refined; urbane (showing a high degree of refinement and the assurance that comes from wide social experience)
worldly-wise (experienced in and wise to the ways of the world)
Also:
elegant (refined and tasteful in appearance or behavior or style)
disenchanted (freed from enchantment)
cosmopolitan; widely distributed (growing or occurring in many parts of the world)
informed (having much knowledge or education)
literate (able to read and write)
secular; temporal; worldly (characteristic of or devoted to the temporal world as opposed to the spiritual world)
Antonym:
naive (marked by or showing unaffected simplicity and lack of guile or worldly experience)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past simple / past participle of the verb sophisticate
Context examples:
Simulating others’ decisions is a sophisticated cognitive process that is rooted in social learning.
(‘Mindreading’ neurons simulate decisions of social partners, University of Cambridge)
Epidemiological methods involve sophisticated statistics and higher mathematics.
(Epidemiological Method, NCI Thesaurus)
Researchers have used sophisticated models to estimate the mass of the Milky Way to be 890 billion times that of our sun.
(Researchers Estimate Mass of Milky Way to Be 3.9 Tredecillion Pounds, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
They have some of the most sophisticated behaviors in the animal kingdom: large, highly-developed brains capable of learning and problem-solving.
(First-ever octopus genome sequenced, NSF)
The team put data from MESSENGER into a sophisticated computer program that allowed them to adjust parameters and figure out what the interior composition of Mercury must be like to match the way it spins and the way the spacecraft accelerated around it.
(A Closer Look at Mercury’s Spin and Gravity Reveals the Planet’s Inner Solid Core, NASA)
In Science, a team based at Weill Cornell Medical College and the Yale University School of Medicine described the use of a sophisticated technique called single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer (smFRET) to study prefusion Env.
(The Structure and Dynamics of HIV Surface Spikes, NIH)
Astronomers use sophisticated algorithms to search the data for these dips in brightness, and in particular, to correct for the spacecraft’s small movements in space—this is the 'flickering' of the pixels seen in the movie.
(Light From An Ultra-Cool Neighbor, NASA)
Through the application of sophisticated computational modeling the researchers made several key findings, including:
— Human herpesvirus 6A and 7 were more abundant in Alzheimer’s disease samples than non-Alzheimer’s.
— There are multiple points of overlap between virus-host interactions and genes associated with Alzheimer’s risk.
— Multiple viruses impact the biology of Alzheimer’s disease across domains such as DNA, RNA and proteins.
(Viruses may play a role in Alzheimer’s disease, National Institutes of Health)
By using sophisticated analytical chemistry techniques and performing complex biological tests to quantify hormonal activity, the Granada-based researchers studied the presence of the plastic component bisphenol A, the preservatives known as parabens, and the hormonal activity (estrogenicity and androgenicity) of the sock extracts.
(Nine out of ten pairs of baby socks on the market contain traces of bisphenol A and parabens, University of Granada)
Researchers compared recently available global land cover observations of temperature and humidity from satellites over 12 years with results from GFDL’s sophisticated, high-resolution Earth System Model and found that model results were consistent with observations.
(Forests minimize severe heat waves, NOAA)
