Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Evil or corrupt state; moral perverseness; depravity; wickedness; depraved action.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Deterioration; degeneracy; corruption; especially, moral crookedness; moral perversion; perverseness; depravity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete perversion, depravity

Etymologies

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Examples

  • If men are prone to mistake their selfish feelings for benevolent affections; then we may easily see wliy they so generally disbelieve the doctrine of total de - pravity, which is plainly taught in the word of God.

    Sermons on various important subjects of doctrine and practice 1812

  • For it is not sin which he derives from his parents; at least, not sin in any sense which imports blame, but only some prejudice to the perfect harmony of this mold, some kind of pravity or obliquity which inclines him to evil.

    Christian Nurture. 1802-1876 1876

  • Of these moral rules or laws, to which men generally refer, and by which they judge of the rectitude or pravity of their actions, there seem to me to be three sorts, with their three different enforcements, or rewards and punishments.

    An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2007

  • He that, with Archelaus, shall lay it down as a principle, that right and wrong, honest and dishonest, are defined only by laws, and not by nature, will have other measures of moral rectitude and pravity, than those who take it for granted that we are under obligations antecedent to all human constitutions.

    An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2007

  • Lastly, they are to be taught that not only the unjust facts, but the designs and intentions to do them, though by accident hindered, are injustice; which consisteth in the pravity of the will, as well as in the irregularity of the act.

    Leviathan 2007

  • Thus, the taking from another what is his, without his knowledge or allowance, is properly called stealing: but that name, being commonly understood to signify also the moral pravity of the action, and to denote its contrariety to the law, men are apt to condemn whatever they hear called stealing, as an ill action, disagreeing with the rule of right.

    An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2007

  • Mean while the sudden affluence occasioned by trade, forced open all the sluices of luxury and overflowed the land with every species of profligacy and corruption; a total pravity of manners would ensue, and this must be attended with bankruptcy and ruin.

    The Expedition of Humphry Clinker 2004

  • And if God be pleased but to give this spirit among you, I have nothing to fear but the mere weakness and pravity of my own heart and spirit.

    The Sermons of John Owen 1616-1683 1968

  • Sanctification, so far as it relates to the removal of spiritual defilement, is illustrated; and that man cannot purge himself from his natural pravity is proved, iv.

    Pneumatologia 1616-1683 1967

  • And although this disposition, so far as it is the result of our especial constitutions and complexion, is not sin in itself, yet it dwells at the next door unto it, and, as it is excited by the moral pravity of our natures, a continual occasion of it.

    Pneumatologia 1616-1683 1967

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