perversion

Forms

perversion f (plural perversions)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin perversiō (“depravity, disorder”), formed on perversum, the supine of pervertō (“to overturn, corrupt”).^[2][3][4] The Late Latin noun is found from the early 3rd century in Tertullian, of the falsifying of a text, and in the moral sense from the early 4th century.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded in 1444, in a French translation of Gilles Colonne's Gouvernement des princes, meaning a change from good to bad, corruption.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Active in sense, the word first named moral corruption.^[3] In medicine it took the sense “disorder of a normal function” (1546, Rabelais), in connection with the verb pervertir;^[2][3][5] Littré quotes Paré on the “perversion” of the face.^[2][3][5] This sense has aged, but the modern use in psychiatry and Freudian psychoanalysis, for sexual deviation (in German in Freud, 1905), grows out of it; the word then passed into everyday speech.^[3] In Anglo-Norman perversion also meant corruption.^[6]

Timeline

• 1444 – First record, “change from good to bad, corruption”.^[2][3]
• 1546 – Rabelais uses it for a disordered bodily function.^[2][3]
• 1905 – Freud's use in German gives the psychoanalytic sense.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary) The act of perverting; a change for the worse, corruption: la perversion des mœurs.^[7][2]
2. (psychology) A deviation of the instincts caused by psychic disorders.^[7]
3. A sexual perversion: perversion sexuelle.^[7][3]

Related words

• pervertir
• pervers
• perversité
• Latin perversiō

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
6. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert