pravity
pravity noun: perversion, depravity; wickedness.
Noun
pravity (countable and uncountable, plural pravities)
- 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[…].1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost - […] they alledged, That becauſe I had ſome Rudiments of Reaſon, added to the natural pravity of thoſe Animals, it was to be feared, I might be able to ſeduce them into the woody and mountainous parts of the Country, and bring them in Troops by night to deſtroy the Houyhnhnms Cattle, as being...1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author’s Oeconomy and Happy Life among the Houyhnhnms. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London...
- Synonyms:
- baseness, corruption, defilement, degeneracy, degradation, depravation, depravedness, depravity, impurity, iniquity
- Doubt not but that sin
Synonyms of pravity
- baseness
- corruption
- defilement
- degeneracy
- degradation
- depravation
- depravedness
- depravity
- impurity
- iniquity
14 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of pravity
| plural | pravities |
|---|
Origin of pravity
From Middle French pravité, and its source, Latin prāvitās (“crookedness; depravity”), from prāvus (“prave”).
Questions about pravity
- What does pravity mean?
- Pravity means perversion, depravity; wickedness.
- What part of speech is pravity?
- Pravity is a noun.
- What is the plural of pravity?
- The plural of pravity is pravities.
Words near pravity in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pravity (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “pravity.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pravity. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.