deprave
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make morally bad or evil; vitiate; corrupt.
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Obsolete. to defame.
verb
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to make morally bad; corrupt; vitiate
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obsolete to defame; slander
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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depravesimple
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depravessimple
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have depravedperfect
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has depravedperfect
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am depravingprogressive
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are depravingprogressive
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is depravingprogressive
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have been depravingperfect progressive
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has been depravingperfect progressive
Past
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depravedsimple
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had depravedperfect
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was depravingprogressive
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were depravingprogressive
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had been depravingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of deprave
1325–75; Middle English depraven (< Anglo-French ) < Latin dēprāvāre to pervert, corrupt, equivalent to dē- de- + prāv ( us ) crooked + -āre infinitive suffix
Explanation
Use the verb deprave as a more dramatic synonym for corrupt: Some parents in the 1980s feared that heavy metal music would deprave their innocent children. You have probably heard the expression "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach," meaning the sense of taste, when triggered, can inflame feelings like love and passion. Taken to extremes, though, too much indulging of any of the senses can make someone depraved, addicted to or fixated on feeling good. This pursuit of excess is the opposite of a word that sounds and looks like depraved: deprived.
Vocabulary lists containing deprave
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"Paradise Lost" by John Milton, Book V
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Paradise Lost
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"I don't think you should censor books but there is this strange anomaly - it's common sense that films can deprave and corrupt, and that books can't."
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2012
It has been 14 years since China officially banned console video games, worrying the living-room boxes would dumb down or deprave the brains of Chinese youth.
From Washington Post
On the contrary it would so deprave our currency that it would bring ruin, particularly to the wage earners of the country and those on fixed salaries.
From Time Magazine Archive
The legal definition of obscenity in Great Britain is that which tends "to deprave and corrupt."
From Time Magazine Archive
Success and unquestioned dominion far more often deprave and distort than ennoble and purify the moral nature of man.
From Theodoric the Goth Barbarian Champion of Civilisation by Hodgkin, Thomas
Should I select something that shows how war depraves, or something that shows how it ennobles?
From Pebbles on the shore [by] Alpha of the plough by Gardiner, A. G. (Alfred George)
Cornelia," replied Antonicq, proud of the noble words of his bride, "tyrants rule less, perhaps, through force that terrorizes than through corruption that depraves.
From The Pocket Bible or Christian the Printer A Tale of the Sixteenth Century by Sue, Eug?ne
Such teaching is interesting as showing how the admission of caprice in the world of phenomena reacts upon the moral sense and depraves our conception of God and salvation.
From Christian Mysticism by Inge, William Ralph
An education which does not cultivate the will, is an education that depraves the mind.
From The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard by France, Anatole
Sometimes they produce an insufficient performance of it; and this, by closing an avenue of elimination, poisons the blood, and depraves the organization.
From Sex in Education or, A Fair Chance for Girls by Clarke, Edward Hammond
You would respect the movie more if it stuck with its depraved indifference to civilized behavior, rather than attempting a death-bed conversion to decency.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Neill seemed to savor the chance to go deeper, to look more closely at our innate capacity for acts both moral and depraved.
From Salon ● Jul. 17, 2026
Yet its parties, even at their most decadent and depraved, were never quite cool.
From Slate ● Mar. 30, 2026
“I apologize to all who were hurt by this clearly terrible and depraved individual.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 2026
What avian menace had depraved Fortuna spun his way?
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
Better to devote one’s self to a useful and humble profession than employ one’s talent in depraving morals, and degrading souls.
From Elements of Morals With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the State by Janet, Paul
That by a perpetual miracle, Sacred Manuscripts would be protected all down the ages against depraving influences of whatever sort,—was not to have been expected; certainly, was never promised.
From The Revision Revised by Burgon, John William
If affection lead a man to favor the less worthy in desert, let him do it, without depraving or disabling the better deserver.
From The Essays of Francis Bacon by Bacon, Francis
Truth is the only basis of virtue; and we cannot, without depraving our minds, endeavour to please a lover or husband, but in proportion as he pleases us.
From Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Wollstonecraft, Mary
But can only say that first we should get rid of all this depraving luxury.
From The Light Shines in Darkness by Maude, Aylmer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
