subversion

American  

[suhb-vur-zhuhn, -shuhn] / səbˈvɜr ʒən, -ʃən /

noun

• subversions
  plural

1. an act or instance of subverting.

2. the state of being subverted; destruction.

3. something that subverts or overthrows.

---

subversion British  

/ səbˈvɜːʃən /

noun

1. the act or an instance of subverting or overthrowing a legally constituted government, institution, etc

2. the state of being subverted; destruction or ruin

3. something that brings about an overthrow

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• antisubversion
  noun
• nonsubversion
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• subversions
  plural

Etymology

Origin of subversion

1350–1400; Middle English < Late Latin subversiōn- (stem of subversiō ) an overthrowing. See sub-, version

Explanation

Subversion means overthrowing something, like a government or law, or it can mean corrupting someone’s personal morals, like making a vegetarian eat bacon by tricking her. The Latin root subvertere means “to turn from below,” and when you turn something on its head in a sneaky way, that’s subversion. Imagine digging a hole in the ground, then covering the hole with a layer of sticks and leaves. When someone walks on it, they fall in. That’s the basic idea of subversion, attacking from below. People often use subversion to take down a corrupt government, and acts of subversion are a powerful way to protest injustice.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

subversion subversions

Lee and Chow were charged with subversion crimes in 2021 and have been behind bars since, under a Beijing-imposed national security law.

From Barron's ● Aug. 21, 2026

Dong was eventually jailed for "inciting subversion" and "crossing the national border illegally".

From BBC ● May 27, 2026

LLMs resist this architecture because the subversion happens inside private conversations.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026

Perversely, it’s times like these, when subversion and subtlety are required, that creativity flourishes.

From Salon ● Jan. 1, 2026

That day, however, as Mary Jackson ran into Kazimierz Czarnecki on the west side of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, there was no turning inward, no subversion, and no dissembling.

From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly

His reach goes beyond that, though: Acts such as Lil Uzi Vert, Juice Wrld and Lil Nas X absorbed his radical aesthetics and peacocking subversions, taking them to pop radio and the Grammy stage.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2022

“You are a punk among punks, a subversion of rules that themselves are subversions of yet other rules.”

From Washington Post ● May 12, 2021

How can a decentralized movement that welcomes strangers guard against such subversions?

From Scientific American ● Feb. 3, 2021

The script, an ingenious concoction of familiar tropes and subversions thereof, gave humanity five years until an unfriendly alien species crash-landing in 2015 has laid claim to most of continental Europe.

From The Guardian ● Jan. 6, 2020

Overturnings and subversions of this description are necessary to bring them to light.

From Napoleon the Little by Victor Hugo

Related Words

• destruction