pravity means perversion, depravity; wickedness.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, pravity ranks #535 of 12,955 for Most Malleable Words, #1,278 of 12,955 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #1,604 of 12,955 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,945 of 12,944 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound.
Why “pravity” is a great word
A state of fundamental moral crookedness, perversion, or wickedness. From Middle French *pravité*, and its source, Latin *prāvitās* ("crookedness; depravity"), from *prāvus* ("crooked, perverse"). First attested in English in the 1540s. Unlike "vice," which suggests a specific, habituated fault, or the blunt modernity of "depravity," "pravity" names the twisted condition itself, the warped grain of a soul. It is the deliberate miscalibration of a compass needle, the architectural flaw in the timber, the quiet, geometric certainty that evil is not an accident, but a structural defect.
Etymology
From Middle French pravité, and its source, Latin prāvitās (“crookedness; depravity”), from prāvus (“prave”).
noun
- Perversion, depravity; wickedness.“Doubt not but that sin
Will reign among them, as of thee begot;
And therefore was law given them, to evince
Their natural pravity, by stirring up
Sin against law to fight[…].”
Words closest in meaning
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