sophisticated

sophisticated, worldly-wise, worldly, blasé, disillusioned are synonymous when they apply to persons, to their attitudes and actions, or to products of human skill and effort and mean experienced or revealing experience in the ways of the world. Sophisticated may be a term of reproach or of commendation according to the point of view of the speaker or writer, but it regularly implies a loss of naturalness, simplicity, or spontaneity through experience. From one point of view the term connotes artificiality of manner, overrefinement, and absence of enthusiasm as the price paid for experience that brings knowledge of men and their ways

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the Negro . . . could rarely afford the sophisticated inhibitions of civilization, and so he kept for his survival the art of the primitive, he lived in the enormous present— Mailer

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From another point of view it implies a type of mentality marked by distinction, urbanity, cleverness, together with an indifference to all that is simple or banal in life

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she didn't want to ride on the roller coaster and he guessed that her ideas of pleasure were more sophisticated— Cheever

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From still another it may imply a cultivation that enables a man to rise above the ordinary or usual

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the lack of a body of sophisticated and civilized public opinion, independent of plutocratic control and superior to the infantile philosophies of the mob— Mencken

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photographs realistic enough to catch the quality of the milieu which produced Pope John, surely the world's simplest and most sophisticated of men— Casey

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Worldly-wise and worldly imply a wisdom gained by attention to the things and ways of the world. Often they stress alienation from true spiritual interests and, as a result, devotion to aims that will make one happy in this world, typically suggesting a concentration upon material ends or aims or upon a wealth of worldly experience

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we apply the term "worldly-wise" to a man who skillfully chooses the best means to the end of ambition; but we should not call such a man "wise" without qualification— Sidgwick

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religion has been leading man toward a nobler vision, a better day, a higher hope, and a fuller life. The church, on the other hand, has been worldly, obscurantist, arrogant and predatory— Pfeffer

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Blasé implies a lack of responsiveness to things which have once been a joy or delight. It usually suggests satiety, but also it tends to suggest such real or affected overexperience and overcultivation as leads to disdain for all that arouses the average person's interest

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the blasé indifference of both the authorities and the people to the war was like cold water ... on my spirits— Belden

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I was going through a period of adolescent awfulness in which I was trying to appear pale, interesting, and world-weary (the popular term . . . was "blase"), and incapable of any reaction to sentiment— Skinner

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Disillusioned implies having had experiences that have completely destroyed a person's illusions, with resulting hopelessness; it applies to a person who from experience is no longer capable of enthusiasm or of idealistic motives and who has grown not only realistic but scornful of the sentimental, the visionary, the emotional

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in a few years the young [newspaper] man will become a cynic, appraising the world and his fellows with disillusioned eyes, even with bitterness— Walker

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the world, grown disillusioned and afraid, has neglected the one source that answers every problem, fills every need— Oursler

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Analogous words: cultivated, cultured (see corresponding nouns at CULTURE): intellectualized (see corresponding adjective at MENTAL): knowing, brilliant, *intelligent, clever, alert

Antonyms: unsophisticated

Contrasted words: *natural, simple, ingenuous, naive, artless: crude, uncouth, callow, raw (see RUDE)