▪ I. pervert, v.
(pəˈvɜːt)
Also 6 par-, -wert, -vart.
[ad. F. pervert-ir = Pr. and Sp. pervertir, Pg. perverter, It. pervertere, ad. L. pervert-ĕre to turn round or about, turn the wrong way, overturn, turn to error or ruin, undo, corrupt; f. per- 2, 3 + vertĕre to turn: cf. convert, divert, etc.]
† 1. trans. To turn upside down; to upset, overthrow; to subvert, ruin. Obs.
| c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. ii. pr. i. 20 (Camb.) Fortune..hath peruertyd the clernesse and the estat of thi corage. c 1450 Mankind 379 in Macro Plays, All þe menys xull be sought. To perverte my condycions, & brynge me to nought. 1543 Joye Confut. Gardiner 9 So setting the carte before the horse, and..like an vngodly gardener to peruert and turne the rotes of his plantes and herbes vpward. c 1560 A. Scott Poems (S.T.S.) xxxiv. 53 Ȝour play [is] sone peruertit. 1604 R. Cawdrey Table Alph., Peruert, ouerthrowe, or turne up side downe. 1656 in Blount Glossogr. |
2. To turn aside from its right course, aim, etc. a. To turn aside from justice, right order, etc.
| 1382 Wyclif Deut. xxvii. 19 Cursid [is he] that peruertith doom of comlynge, faderles child, and widewe. 1483 Rolls of Parlt. VI. 240/2 The ordre of all politique Rule was perverted. 1526 Tindale Acts xiii. 10 Thou ceasest not to pervert the strayght wayes off the lorde. 1620 Venner Via Recta (1650) 297 If we pervert the order of Nature, as to sleep in the day and wake in the night. 1650 Bulwer Anthropomet. 254 The Symetry whereof being causally [? casually] or purposely perverted. 1783 Pott Chirurg. Wks. II. 76 The peristaltic motion of the whole canal is disturbed or perverted. 1868 Freeman Norm. Conq. (1877) II. vii. 127 They perverted the course of justice. |
b. To turn from the proper use, purpose, or meaning; to misapply, misconstrue, wrest the purport of.
| c 1386 Chaucer Melib. ¶223 If thou do hem bountee they wol peruerten it in to wikkednesse. 1413 Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton) ii. xliii. (1859) 49 They peruertyn hooly Scripture by fals vnderstandynge. 1542–5 Brinklow Lament. (1874) 86 The Supper of the Lorde is peruerted and not vsed after Christes institucion. 1593 Nashe Christ's T. 83 They peruert foundations, and will not bestow the Bequeathers free almes. 1630 Prynne Anti-Armin. 118 It peruerts, it disanulls the very series, and substance of the Scripture. 1700 Dryden Pref. Fables Wks. (Globe) 506 He has perverted my meaning by his glosses. 1849 Cobden Speeches 9 What I stated with reference to the great mass of the French people last year was perverted. |
† c. To turn, divert. Obs. rare—1.
| 1611 Shakes. Cymb. ii. iv. 151 Let's follow him, and peruert the present wrath He hath against himselfe. |
d. intr. for refl. To become perverted. rare.
| 1635 Quarles Emblems i. i. 7 Blessings unus'd pervert into a Wast, As well as Surfeits. |
3. trans. To turn (a person, the mind, etc.) away from right opinion or action; to lead astray; to corrupt.
| c 1375 Sc. Leg. Saints xli. (Agnes) 237 Hir..Þat þis wich⁓crafte has done, & peruertis thocht and wil Of al þat treutht giffis hir til. c 1380 Wyclif Sel. Wks. II. 318 Þei witen not how many men ben pervertid bi þer lore. c 1440 York Myst. xxvi. 113 He pervertis oure pepull. 1593 in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. ii. III. 172 Seminarie Priests, Jhesuits..sent hither to pervert such as are dutiefull and well inclyned. 1667 Milton P.L. x. 3 How He [Satan] in the Serpent had perverted Eve, Her Husband shee. 1710 Steele Tatler No. 111 ¶2 A Mind that is not perverted and depraved by wrong Notions. 1859 Mill Liberty ii, When we forbid bad men to pervert society by the propagation of opinions which we regard as false and pernicious. |
b. spec. To turn (any one) aside from a right to a false or erroneous religious belief or system (i.e. to what the speaker or writer holds to be such).
| 13.. S. Erkenwolde 10 in Horstm. Altengl. Leg. (1881) 266 Þe Saxones..peruertyd alle þe pepul þat in þat place dwellide. 1480 Caxton Chron. Eng. iv. (1520) 38 b/2 He was perverted by the heresy of the Ariens. 1579 W. Wilkinson Confut Familye of Loue, Brief Descr., To peruert and turne from the truth xii godly Christians which were martyred. 1666 E. Mountagu in 12th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. App. v. 8 If the young Lord was a strict and a grounded Papist there was some danger my Lady Dorothy might bee perverted. 1770 J. R. Forster tr. Kalm's Trav. N. Amer. (1772) II. 106 It seems that they have been rather perverted than converted. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. vi. II. 87 Walker..with some fellows and undergraduates whom he had perverted, heard mass daily in his own apartments. |
c. intr. To turn aside from the right course; to become a pervert.
| 1387–8 T. Usk Test. Love i. ix. (Skeat) I. 127 So that in nothinge thy kynde from his wil decline, ne from his nobley perverte. 14.. in Lett. Marg. Anjou & Bp. Beckington (Camden) 167 Then I wente to Rome, and from Rome to Rodes, and I perverted to the Sowden in feythe. 1890 Graphic 11 Oct. 420/3, 1593, the year when Henry perverted to Roman Catholicism. |
4. Geom. trans. To reverse the right and left directions of; to form the perverse of (see perverse n.).
| 1900 J. Larmor æther & Matter 209 Enantiomorphy [of a molecule] reverses the signs of all its electrons and perverts their relative position. |
Hence perˈverting vbl. n. and ppl. a.
| c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 386 Peruertynge of goddis ordynance. 1533 Tindale Supper of Lord Wks. (1573) 460 A great tunne full of Mores mischief and pernicious peruertyng of Gods holy worde. 1665 Boyle Occas. Refl. iv. xii. (1848) 241 Of so perverting a Nature, is so high a Station. 1680 Hickeringill Meroz 33 The Converting of a Turk has a better Reward than the perverting of one that is a Christian already. 1712 Prideaux Direct. Ch.-wardens (ed. 4) 22 A perverting of the Statute. |
▪ II. † perˈvert, a. Obs.
[? shortened from perverted: cf. convert a.]
Perverted; perverse; wicked.
| c 1470 Harding Chron. xlvii. v. (Ashm. MS. 34), Brytons..Afore þat were paynims and also perverte. c 1500 Lancelot 1471 Fore thow to gode was frawart and perwert. 1512 Act 4 Hen. VIII c. 19 Preamble, Abydyng in his seid indurat & pervart opynyons. 1549–62 Sternhold & H. Ps. xxviii. 3 Repute me not among the sort Of wicked and peruert. c 1550 R. Wever Lusty Juventus B j, God which hath geuen me the knowledge To know his doctrine from the false and peruarte. |
▪ III. pervert, n.
(ˈpɜːvət)
[app. absolute use of prec., with shifted stress: cf. convert n.]
1. One who has been perverted; one who has forsaken a doctrine or system regarded as true for one esteemed false; an apostate.
| 1661 Blount Glossogr. (ed. 2), Pervert, one that is turned from good to evil; as Convert is the contrary. 1716 M. Davies Athen. Brit. II. 316 A Popish pervert and a Protestant convert are, indeed, two different provisionals. 1845 De Quincey Coleridge & Opium Wks. 1862 XI. 95 Relapsing perverts (such is the modern slang). 1860 Thackeray Round. Papers i. (1863) 4 That notorious ‘pervert’ Henry of Navarre and France. 1879 Farrar St. Paul I. 329 That this audacious pervert [Paul] should not only preach, but preach to the heathen..filled them with rage. |
2. Psychol. One who suffers from a perversion of the sexual instinct.
| 1897 H. Ellis Stud. Psychol. Sex I. i. 11 A pervert whom I can trust told me that he had made advances to upwards of one hundred men. 1906 Jrnl. Abnormal Psychol. Apr. 28 Subconscious feelings which represent, in embryo, the grosser manifestations of the most abandoned sexual perverts. 1924 D. Bryan tr. Freud's Hysterical Phantasies in Coll. Papers II. v. 51 The strange conditions under which certain perverts carry out their sexual gratifications—either in imagination or in reality. 1972 Encycl. Psychol. II. 388/1 In psychoanalytic theory it is postulated that the child shows perversions or is a ‘polymorphous pervert’. 1977 Gay News 24 Mar. 27/1 The word ‘pervert’ hardly seems apt to describe Douglas, in the light of such facts. |