deprave
/dɪˈpreɪv
/verb [with object]
Make (someone) immoral or wicked: this book would deprave and corrupt young children...
- The Legislature can hardly have contemplated that a book which tended to corrupt and deprave the average reader or majority of those likely to read it could be justified as being for the public good on any ground.
- By contaminating the political culture with persuasive but ruinous ideas, populism depraves all electorally-sensitive governments.
- He claimed that the book had depraved him, but it transpired that he had only read it because he had been asked to appear as a witness for the prosecution.
Synonyms
corrupt, lead astray, warp, subvert, pervert, debauch, debase, degrade, make degenerate, defile, sully, pollute, poison, contaminate, infect
archaic demoralize
rare vitiate
Derivatives
depravation
/ noun ...- Permanently tormented by pain, the depravations of peasant life slowly take their toll on him, forcing his wife and daughter to play a more central role in caring for the family.
- Normally, high teenage pregnancy rates are associated with areas of depravation.
- They suspected before they began that sleep depravation, smoking, extra jobs and a social life all contributed to a lack of concentration.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'pervert the meaning or intention of something'): from Old French depraver or Latin depravare, from de- 'down, thoroughly' + pravus 'crooked, perverse'.
The first recorded sense of deprave was ‘pervert the meaning or intention of something’; it comes from Latin depravare, from de- ‘down, thoroughly’ and pravus ‘crooked, perverse’.