[image of passage] This word has generally been considered an American barbarism, but was probably introduced into our country at a very early period from the University of Cambridge, England. Among the cant terms at that University, as given in the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, we find Soph-Mor as the next distinctive appellation to Freshman. It is added, that a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine thinks Mor an abbreviation of the Greek μωρια introduced at a time when the Encomium Moreæ, the Praise of Folly by Erasmus, was so generally used. The ordinary derivation of the word, from σοφος and μωρος would seem, therefore, to be incorrect. The young Sops at Cambridge appear, formerly, to have received the adjunct mor, μωρος to their names, either as one they courted for the reason mentioned above, or as one given them in sport for the supposed exhibition of inflated feeling in entering upon their new honors. The term thus applied, seems to have passed at a very early period from Cambridge in England to Cambridge in America, as the next distinctive appellation to Freshmen, and thus to have been attached to the second of the four classes in our American Colleges, while it has now almost ceased to be known, even as a cant word, at the parent institution in England, from whence it came. This derivation of the word is rendered more probable by the fact that the early spelling was, to a great extent at least, Sophimore, as appears from the manuscripts of President Stiles of Yale College, and the records of the Harvard College, down to the period of the American Revolution. This word would be perfectly natural if Soph or Sophistu was considered as the basis of the word, but can hardly be explained if the ordinary derivation had then been regarded as the true one.--Prof. Goodrich, new ed. Webster's Dic.