sophistication

sophistication
    n 1: uplifting enlightenment [syn: {edification},
         {sophistication}]
    2: a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in
       reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone [syn: {sophism},
       {sophistry}, {sophistication}]
    3: being expert or having knowledge of some technical subject;
       "understanding affine transformations requires considerable
       mathematical sophistication"
    4: the quality or character of being intellectually
       sophisticated and worldly through cultivation or experience
       or disillusionment [syn: {sophistication}, {worldliness},
       {mundaneness}, {mundanity}] [ant: {naiveness}, {naivete},
       {naivety}]
    5: falsification by the use of sophistry; misleading by means of
       specious fallacies; "he practiced the art of sophistication
       upon reason"
    

Sophistication \So*phis`ti*ca"tion\, n. [Cf. LL. sophisticatio,
   F. sophistication.]
   The act of sophisticating; adulteration; as, the
   sophistication of drugs. --Boyle.
   [1913 Webster]
    

100 Moby Thesaurus words for "sophistication":
      accomplishments, acquired taste, acquisition of knowledge,
      acquisitions, apparent soundness, appreciation of excellence,
      attainments, awareness, background, blaseness, casuistry,
      choiceness, circularity, civilized taste, civilizedness,
      complexity, cosmopolitanism, cultivated taste, cultivation,
      culture, daintiness, delicacy, discernment, discrimination,
      disingenuousness, distortion, edification, education, elegance,
      enlightenment, equivocalness, equivocation, evasive reasoning,
      excellence, experience, fallaciousness, fallacy, fastidiousness,
      finesse, good taste, grace, gracefulness, gracility, graciosity,
      graciousness, illumination, insincerity, instruction, intricacy,
      jesuitism, jesuitry, knowledge, knowledgeability, learning,
      liberal education, misapplication, mystification, niceness, nicety,
      obfuscation, obscurantism, oversubtlety, past experience,
      perversion, philosophism, plausibility, plausibleness, poise,
      polish, practical knowledge, practice, quality, rationalization,
      refinement, sagacity, savoir faire, seasoning, sophism,
      sophistical reasoning, sophistry, special pleading, speciosity,
      specious reasoning, speciousness, store of knowledge, style,
      subtlety, taste, tastefulness, tempering, uncullibility,
      undeceivability, ungullibility, unhoaxability, unseduceability,
      urbanity, vicious circle, vicious reasoning, worldliness,
      worldly wisdom