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pervert

UK/ˈpəː.vəːt/US/ˈpɚ.vɚt/
verbB2Common in everyday speech and writing · #3,085 of 15,258mostly spoken

Other forms: perverted, perverting, perverts

To pervert is to turn something good to a bad purpose. Pervert the course of justice, a perverted use of the law, pervert its meaning.

Perverting the course of justice is a serious criminal offence covering lying to police, destroying evidence and intimidating witnesses. As a noun the word is an insult aimed at sexual behaviour and is best avoided. The Latin means to turn thoroughly.

Definitions of pervert

  1. 1verbpervertTo turn something good to a bad purpose.B2

    “The dictator perverted the country's laws to keep himself in power.”

pervert is a corrupting.

Where it comes from

Latin pervertere means to overturn or corrupt — per, thoroughly, plus vertere, to turn.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *wert-

  2. Latin

    pervertō

  3. Old French

    pervertir

  4. English, today

    pervert

From Old French pervertir, itself from the Latin pervertō.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

pervert in the wild

  • Jiraiya appears as a perverted old man who occasionally returns to the village Konohagakure, reporting the activities of Orochimaru and the organization Akatsuki.

    Jiraiya (Naruto)

  • Mazher Mahmood is a British journalist who was convicted of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

    Mazher Mahmood

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.