pervert
- to affect with perversion.
- to lead astray morally.
- to turn away from the right course.
- to lead into mental error or false judgment.
- to turn to an improper use; misapply.
- to misconstrue or misinterpret, especially deliberately; distort: to pervert someone's statement.
- to bring to a less excellent state; vitiate; debase.
- Pathology. to change to what is unnatural or abnormal.
- to convert or persuade to a religious belief regarded as false or wrong.
- a person who practices sexual perversion.
- Pathology. a person affected with perversion.
- a person who has been perverted, especially to a religious belief regarded as erroneous.
Origin of pervert
Synonyms
See more synonyms for pervert on Thesaurus.comExamples from the Web for pervert
Contemporary Examples
The All Quiet on the Pervert Front has led photo-sharers on Reddit and 4chan to declare “The Fappening” dead.
‘The Fappening’ Is Dead: From A-List Hacking Victims to D-Listers Accused of Leaking Nudes For PRMarlow Stern
October 18, 2014
In keeping with the raucous nature of his tabloid scandal, one person shouted “Pervert!”
pervert
- to use wrongly or badly
- to interpret wrongly or badly; distort
- to lead into deviant or perverted beliefs or behaviour; corrupt
- to debase
- a person who practises sexual perversion
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for pervert
v.
c.1300 (transitive), "to turn someone aside from a right religious belief to a false or erroneous one," from Old French pervertir "pervert, undo, destroy" (12c.) and directly from Latin pervertere "overthrow, overturn," figuratively "to corrupt, subvert, abuse," literally "turn the wrong way, turn about," from per- "away" (see per) + vertere "to turn" (see versus).
Related: Perverted; perverting. Replaced native froward, which embodies the same image. Old English had mishweorfed "perverted, inverted," an identical formation to the Latin word using native elements.
n.
1660s, "one who has forsaken a doctrine or system regarded as true, apostate," from pervert (v.). Psychological sense of "one who has a perversion of the sexual instinct" is attested from 1897 (Havelock Ellis), originally especially of homosexuals.