Sophists

sof'ists, public teachers in ancient Greece during the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. They taught for pay. They incurred the dislike of those who could not afford to pay them, and also of those philosophers who thought that teaching ought not to be done for pay. They filled a need. Many wealthy Athenians desired teachers for their sons. The sophists acquired an unenviable reputation for unsound argument to which the name sophistry is still applied. The word sophist really means a teacher of wisdom.