Definition (Noun) Specious but fallacious reasoning; employment of arguments which are intentionally deceptive. In Context "Bryan Edwards, the Jamaican planter-historian, justified this coercion with the sophistry: 'Men in savage life have no incentive to emulation: persuasion is lost on such men, and compulsion, to a certain degree, is humanity and charity.'" Alvin O. Thompson, The Haunting Past: Politics, Economics and Race in Caribbean Life, 1997.