PERVERSE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Perverse

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/pərvˈərs/ Listen

adjective

Perverse adj.

Turned aside; hence, specifically, turned away from the right; willfully erring; wicked; perverted. "The only righteous in a world perverse."

Obstinate in the wrong; stubborn; intractable; hence, wayward; vexing; contrary. "To so perverse a sex all grace is vain."

Synonyms: Froward; untoward; wayward; stubborn; ungovernable; intractable; cross; petulant; vexatious. Perverse, Froward. One who is froward is capricious, and reluctant to obey. One who is perverse has a settled obstinacy of will, and likes or dislikes by the rule of contradiction to the will of others.

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Etymology of 'Perverse'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Perverse" Quotes from Famous Books

... sentiments expressed; of any want of concentration in thought, of national or historical keeping. Far from this, indeed, a deliberate unity of purpose is strikingly apparent. Without referring for the present to what are assumed to be perverse faults of execution—a question the principles and bearing of which will shortly be considered—assuredly the mention of the names of a few among Browning's poems—of "Paracelsus," "Pippa Passes," "Luria," the "Souls's Tragedy," "King Victor ...

— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... was natural that Neville should agree with Rodney; but Pamela had picked up foolish ideas from working among the poor and living with Frances Carr, and Nan was, as usual, merely wrong-headed, childish and perverse. ...

— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... lubrication of the mental processes and a sedative for the nerves besides; but the act of chewing must be discreetly and inaudibly carried on, and he who in the heat of argument or under the stress of cross-questioning a perverse witness failed to patronize the cuspidors which dotted the floor at suitable intervals stood in peril of a stern admonishment for the first offense and a fine ...

— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... friends, who all declared that, instead of being deranged in my intellect, they had never heard my conversation manifest so much energy or sublimity of conception; but, for all that, over the singular delusion that I was two persons my reasoning faculties had no power. The most perverse part of it was that I rarely conceived myself to be any of the two persons. I thought for the most part that my companion was one of them, and my brother the other; and I found that, to be obliged to speak and answer ...

— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... forms of thieving. He had gained his spurs in that sphere, and naturally enough had kept for it, after his promotion to another department, a feeling not very far removed from affection. Thieving was not a sheer absurdity. It was a form of human industry, perverse indeed, but still an industry exercised in an industrious world; it was work undertaken for the same reason as the work in potteries, in coal mines, in fields, in tool-grinding shops. It was labour, whose practical difference ...

— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

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