Perversity

//pə(ɹ)ˈvɜː(ɹ)sɪti// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The quality of being perverse. countable, uncountable

    "Hey kids, the word of the week is "pupaphobia"! Others may enjoy being frightened by chainsaw-wielding maniacs and cannibal clowns, but my Halloween is never complete without a murderous Muppet or two. Thankfully, a pair of events last Friday the 13th provided a perfect double feature of puppet perversity."

  2. 2
    deliberately deviating from what is good wordnet
  3. 3
    Something which is perverse. countable, uncountable

    "More generally, for the ULD property to hold, the substitution effects (which are always well behaved) must be large enough to overcome possible “perversities” coming from the wealth effects."

  4. 4
    deliberate and stubborn unruliness and resistance to guidance or discipline wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
contrarinessantagonismantipathyantithesisbearishnessbitchiness

Example

More examples

"In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods."

Etymology

From perverse + -ity, from Middle French perversité, from Latin perversitās.

Related phrases

diversity is perversitypolymorphous perversity

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.