perverso

Forms

perverso (feminine perversa, masculine plural perversos, feminine plural perversas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin perversus (“turned the wrong way; perverse, wicked”).^[2][1][3][4] The Latin adjective is the past participle of pervertō (“to overturn, corrupt”), formed with the intensive per- and vertō (“to turn”).^[5][6][7] The same learned family includes pervertir, from the Latin verb, and perversidad and perversión, while the inherited verb is verter.^[4][3] The Latin word also gave Italian perverso, French pervers and Catalan pervers.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The BDELC dates it to 1438; the DCECH, following Autoridades, to the 15th century.^[3][4] The DEMel lists an earlier record in the glossary of the Fuero de Alarcón, of about 1300, from a secondary source.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Early texts from the Americas use the word loosely for “very bad”: a document of 1532 from Mexico speaks of muy perversos caminos de sierras “very bad mountain roads”, and one of 1530 from the Río de la Plata spells it perfesa of cannibal people.^[11] Covarrubias defined the perverso as the depraved man, and Autoridades as one extremely bad and depraved in his morals.^[12][13] The DLE now distinguishes someone extremely wicked, who does harm on purpose, from someone who corrupts morals or the normal order of things;^[14] Moliner adds the jocular use of a mischievous child and the use of harmful effects, efectos perversos.^[2][14] In El Salvador a niño perverso is simply a naughty child.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – the DEMel's earliest record, in the glossary of the Fuero de Alarcón.^[10]
• 1438 – the BDELC's first date.^[3]
• 1530 – first record in the Americas, in the Río de la Plata.^[11]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as “depraved”, from Latin perversus.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the Latin etymon.^[16]

Meanings

Adjective

1. wicked, extremely bad; doing harm on purpose; also as a noun.^[2][1]
2. That corrupts morals or the normal order of things; perverse, perverted.^[2][1]
3. Of effects or consequences: harmful, counterproductive: los efectos perversos de una reforma.^[14]
4. (El Salvador) Of a child: naughty.^[15]

Word family

• perversamente

Related words

• perversidad
• perversión
• pervertir
• verter
• Latin perversus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. perverso
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. verter
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 791
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. perverso
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. perverso
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. s.v. perversus
9. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 795
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. perverso
11. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. perverso
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1210
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 238
14. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. perverso
15. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. perverso
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 771