Sophisticated means refined and complex — machines, tastes, or people of the world. A sophisticated system, sophisticated taste, sophisticated and worldly.
It is entirely complimentary now, which is a reversal: to sophisticate once meant to adulterate or corrupt, and a sophisticated wine was a doctored one. The change happened in the twentieth century. Note sophistry, which kept the older suspicion; and that both go back to the Greek for wisdom.
1adjectivesophisticatedRefined and complex.
“The bank uses a sophisticated system to spot unusual payments.”
synonyms: refined, advanced
sophisticated is a quality of refinement.
Medieval Latin sophisticatus comes from sophisticus, from Greek sophos, wise. To sophisticate first meant to adulterate.
First English usage circa 1601. From Medieval Latin - sophisticatus.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Adjectives