deprave

American  

[dih-preyv] / dɪˈpreɪv /

verb (used with object)

• depraves,
  present (3rd person singular)
• depraved,
  past participle,  past
• depraving
  present participle

1. to make morally bad or evil; vitiate; corrupt.

2. Obsolete. to defame.

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deprave British  

/ dɪˈpreɪv /

verb

1. to make morally bad; corrupt; vitiate

2. obsolete to defame; slander

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• depravation
  noun
• depraver
  noun
• nondepravation
  noun
• depravingly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Participles

• depraving
  present
• depraved
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• deprave
  simple
• depraves
  simple
• have depraved
  perfect
• has depraved
  perfect
• am depraving
  progressive
• are depraving
  progressive
• is depraving
  progressive
• have been depraving
  perfect progressive
• has been depraving
  perfect progressive

Past

• depraved
  simple
• had depraved
  perfect
• was depraving
  progressive
• were depraving
  progressive
• had been depraving
  perfect progressive

Future

• will deprave
  simple
• will have depraved
  perfect
• will be depraving
  progressive
• will have been depraving
  perfect progressive

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

deprave depraves depraved depraving

"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

Hence the desire for high-seasoned food, and pungent sauces, that both deprave the taste and over excite the digestive organs.

From A Treatise on Physiology and Hygiene For Educational Institutions and General Readers by Joseph Chrisman Hutchison

The education of life perfects the thinking mind, but depraves the frivolous.—Mme. de Staël.

From Pearls of Thought by Maturin Murray Ballou

At the same time the State depraves those who govern.

From Anarchism by Paul Eltzbacher

The letters and arts engender luxury, and luxury is one of the powerful instruments of corruption in morals: it destroys courage, lowers the character, and, by another consequence, depraves and corrupts the taste even.

From Elements of Morals With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the State by Paul Janet

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 A. G. (Alfred George) Gardiner

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 William Ralph Inge

However perverse and depraved the ideas that animate the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah, they inspire the kind of conviction that motivates people to fight grimly on against the odds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026

Calling him a "depraved individual", the judge at Nottingham Crown Court handed him a two-year suspended prison sentence.

From BBC ● Apr. 9, 2026

Yet its parties, even at their most decadent and depraved, were never quite cool.

From Slate ● Mar. 30, 2026

Intimately acquainted with Richard’s malignity, these ruined royals know only too well the toll of his depraved machinations.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 26, 2026

She began to cry, her depraved face breaking into an infant’s grimace; and they moved away from her, leaving her dirty in a dirty room, alone to face her Maker.

From "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin

Consequently its real action, always in contradiction of the humanitarian theories which it professes, has constantly exercised a disastrous and depraving influence.

From God and the State by Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin

For they wax more proud, more wayward, more envious, suspicious, misjudging and depraving other men, with the delight of their own praise, and such other spiritual vices of the soul.

From Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens by Monica Stevens

Separated from one another in actual date by 50, perhaps by 100 years,742 they must needs have branched off from a common corrupt ancestor, and straightway become exposed continuously to fresh depraving influences.

From The Revision Revised by John William Burgon

Item, that she rails on men in authority, depraving their honours with bitter jests and taunts; and that she's a backbiter, setting strife betwixt bosom friends.

From A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 9 by Various

It is needless to say how depraving was the effect of this hopelessness.

From The Expositor's Bible: Ephesians by G. G. Findlay