pervert

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English perverten,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French pervertir, also parvertir,^[5][3][2] recorded in Anglo-Norman as purvertir and pervertir from the first half of the 12th century,^[5][6] and directly borrowed from Latin pervertō (“to turn round, overturn, corrupt”).^[5][2][3][7] The Latin verb is formed from per- (“away, to ill effect”) and vertō (“to turn”),^{[2][8][9][10]} from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to turn, bend”).^[2] Etymonline notes that it replaced the native froward, built on the same image, and that Old English had mishweorfed (“perverted, inverted”), formed in the same way from native elements.^[2] The noun comes from the verb,^[2][3] or from the obsolete adjective (perverted, wicked, from before 1500 to 1560) used as a noun; that adjective was apparently shortened from perverted.^[5][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To distort or obstruct justice or a right order: before 1382, in the early version of the Wycliffite Bible.^[5] Barnhart's first record is Chaucer's translation of Boethius, about 1380, in the senses "overthrow", "lead from what is right" and "misconstrue".^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the verb already ranged from "turn round, overturn" to "corrupt",^[5][2] and the French verb had gained the senses of changing for the worse, leading astray and falsifying in the 12th century.^[5] Middle English took over most of these: to thwart justice, to twist the meaning of a text (Chaucer, about 1390), and to overturn or ruin, a sense lost after the 17th century.^[5][7] In the Wycliffite Bible and later it meant to turn someone from true religion to a false one, the opposite of convert,^[5][2] and the noun, recorded from 1501, first meant an apostate.^[5][4][2] The general sense of leading a person astray or corrupting them is from about 1425.^[5] Johnson (1755) gave "to distort from the true end or purpose" and "to corrupt".^[11] The noun's sexual sense is recorded from 1856;^[5] Etymonline and Barnhart find it in 1897, in Havelock Ellis, and sexual pervert by 1889, at first used especially of homosexuals.^[2][3] The legal phrase pervert the course of justice keeps the oldest sense.^[5][4]

Timeline

• before 1382 – to distort or obstruct justice or a right order.^[5]
• c. 1380 – to overturn, ruin (obsolete by 1656), in Chaucer's Boethius.^[3][5]
• c. 1390 – to twist the meaning of a text, in Chaucer.^[5]
• before 1425 – to turn someone from a true religion to a false one.^[5]
• c. 1425 – to lead astray, corrupt.^[5]
• before 1500 – adjective, perverted, wicked (obsolete by 1560).^[5][7]
• 1501 – noun, a perverted person, an apostate.^[5][4] Barnhart and Etymonline date the noun to 1661 and the 1660s.^[3][2]
• 1856 – noun, a person with abnormal sexual behaviour.^[5] Etymonline and Barnhart date this sense to 1897.^[2][3]
• 1890 – in geometry, to reverse a figure into its mirror image.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lead someone away from what is right or good; to corrupt: He was accused of perverting young minds.^[4][9][5]
2. To turn something from its proper use or purpose; to misuse, as in pervert the course of justice.^[4][9][5]
3. To twist the meaning of something; to misinterpret or distort.^[9][5]
4. To debase.^[9]
5. (obsolete, 1380–1656) To overturn or ruin.^[5][7]

Noun

1. A person whose sexual behaviour is regarded as abnormal or unacceptable.^[9][4][5]
2. (archaic) An apostate, a person who has abandoned a true belief for a false one.^[5][7][2]

Word family

• perverter
• pervertible
• pervertibility
• pervertibly

Related words

• perverse
• perversion
• convert
• subvert
• invert
• verse
• froward

Usage notes

The verb is stressed on the second syllable and the noun on the first; the OED compares the same shift in convert.^[9][4][5]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.