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  

/ ˌdɛprəˈveɪʃən, 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

He has been determined that if the rulers of the country will deny the truth, they shall not debauch it; if they depart from the constitution, they shall not deprave it.

From International Weekly Miscellany - Volume 1, No. 9, August 26, 1850 by Various

Thus the host of Moumouth became his tyrant; so true is it that personal interest depraves the best natures.

From The Story of a Cat by Aldrich, Thomas Bailey

It is the masters of slaves, not the slaves, who are deficient in self-rule; and slavery is doubly detestable, because it depraves the masters.

From Phases of Faith Passages from the History of My Creed by Newman, Francis William

She furthermore held that hereditary rule depraves the best dispositions, and produces the monsters that have horrified the world.

From The Branding Needle, or The Monastery of Charolles A Tale of the First Communal Charter by Sue, Eugène

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

An education which does not cultivate the will, is an education that depraves the mind.

From The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard by France, Anatole

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

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

Hugh shouted, “Keep your trousers on, you depraved lunatic!”

From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs

The vague phrases of depraving manners and applying revolutionary principles perfidiously, were exactly calculated to smite the band of violent men whose conduct was to Robespierre the scandal of the Revolution.

From Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) Essay 1: Robespierre by Morley, John

So, whatever else we do by our acts, we are making our own characters, either steadily depraving or steadily improving them.

From Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah and Jeremiah by Maclaren, Alexander

I sought to make her conceive of our nation as a family, where every one was secured against want by the common provision, and against the degrading and depraving inequality which comes from want.

From Through the Eye of the Needle A Romance by Howells, William Dean

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 Burgon, John William

The effect of this is depraving: it contracts the soul, misdirects its energies, and blunts the edge of its spiritual sensibility.

From Female Scripture Biographies, Volume I by Cox, Francis Augustus