English edit

Adjective edit

perversed (comparative more perversed, superlative most perversed)

  1. (obsolete) Split off; isolated; unconnected.
    • 1912, Herbert Edgar Holmes, The Makers of Maine, page 172:
      He describes the people of Maine in these words: "Magistrates, Husbandmen or Planters and fishermen; of the magistrates some be royalists, the rest perversed spirits, the like are the planters and fishers, of which some be planters and fishers both, others meer fishers; there are but few handscraftmen, and no shopkeepers; English goods being kept by the Massachusetts merchants, here and there, on the coast, at a profit of one per cent. in exchange for fish."
    • 1915 September, F.C. Bandy, “General Paresis of the Insane”, in The Journal of the Michigan State Medical Society, volume 14, number 9, page 469:
      A dull, heavy headache is frequently present, cutaneous sensibility of often perversed sharp pains, numbness, itching, etc.
    • 2022, Antoon Vergote, In Search of a Philosophical Anthropology:
      Sexuality is perversed when it is reduced to one of its separate components.
  2. Distorted; changed for the worse.
    • 1918, Virginia Medical Monthly (1918- ). - Volume 45, page 10:
      Such a condition indicates perversed physiological function or pathology, or possibly the two combined, and may have origin in the gastro-intestinal tract, the cardio-vascular, cardio-renal, respiratory, or any other system in the body.
    • 1918 January, William Held, “The Epilepsy Problem”, in Iowa Homeopathic Journal, volume 11, number 8, page 13:
      The patient becomes listless, sluggish, irritable, perversed in desires, unreasonable and passes through varied stages of mental decay to ultimate insanity.
    • 1989, Nigerian Defence Academy Journal - Volume 1, Issue 1, page 100:
      The democracy distilled and diluted by these repressive organs has to be perversed democracy.
    • 2001, V. I. Kazansky, Cancer and Its Prophylactics: Modern Theory of Malignant Tumours, page 44:
      As regards the type of metabolism peculiar to it, this protein is similar to the primitive live substance, the difference between them being that the cancerous protein has the faculty of forming tumorous cells that retain in the cellular stage the perversed type of metabolism characterized by the predominance of growth over development (differentiation), resulting in an intense growth of the cancer cells.
    • 2013, Dominic Minguzzi, The Holy Spirit Unveiled: The Deep Secrets of God, page 25:
      We have to understand that images are reversed in a mirror and that certain things on earth have the same meaning in heaven. They are just reversed because this world is perversed.
    • 2022, Jihoon Kim, Documentary's Expanded Fields:
      Seen in this light, the DV footage helps viewers to recontextualize the fantasy of familial happiness that hs been at play in the production and cirulation of home movies, and thereby to notice what remains unfilmed and unrepresentable in them, namely, any clue to Issei's pathological unconsciousness that might be linked to his perversed desire and fantasy.
  3. Perverted; morally wrong; wicked; corrupt.
    • 1905, William Held, Crime, Habit Or Disease?, page 82:
      It was by associating with a sexually perversed person that I learned to regard my experience with women as a symptom of my affliction and gradually drifted into my present occupation.
    • 1912, The Pennsylvania-German Society: Proceedings and Addresses at York, PA., October 14, 1910, page 21:
      The Works of the Lord are praise-worthy with the innocent: but they which travell on perversed ways, shall be ashamed.
    • 1991, The Bulletin - Volumes 5751-5757, page 114:
      Management is perversed. In a big department store, I asked the manager why the labelled FIRE EXIT doors were locked. He said there is no fire in this time; the printed signs are demanded by stupid fire regulations only.
    • 2010, Robert Sydney Reyes, Job & the Gospel of Suffering, page 133:
      Did he have any obligation, legal or otherwise, to enter into such a disruptive, confused and perversed situation, all manipulated by evil intent, only because Satan said so?
  4. Contrary;vexing; wayward.
    • 1834, Charles Clifford, A Tale, page 114:
      Yes, but you are so perversed and old - fashioned. Your notions would make us all as solemn and dull as a parcel of monks.
    • 1885, George Eliot, Felix Holt, the Radical, page 242:
      Felix, being in a perversed mood, contended that universal suffrage would be equally agreeable to the devil; that he would change his politics a little, have a larger traffic, and see himself more fully represented in Parliament.
    • 2021, Ravi Ranjan & M.K.Singh, The Revolt of 1857, page 185:
      Efforts were, therefore, made to keep him in good humour, but he remained dogged and perversed, refusing to see the Magistrate.

Verb edit

perversed

  1. simple past and past participle of perverse

Anagrams edit