perversus

Forms

perversus (feminine perversa, neuter perversum; comparative perversior, superlative perversissimus); first/second-declension adjective^[1] It is also spelled pervorsus.^[1][2]

Etymology

Used as an adjective, it is the past participle from Latin pervertō (“to overturn; to corrupt”).^[1][2][3] That verb is from Latin per- + vertō (“to turn”), and Wiktionary traces vertō to Proto-Italic *wertō and Proto-Indo-European *wert-, with cognates such as Sanskrit वर्तते (vártate, “to turn”) and Lithuanian ver̃sti.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the OLD's earliest quotations Plautus has a day that has turned out wrong and against the speaker, and tells a man he is perverse both there and here.^[1][3]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is turned the wrong way round, reversed: Varro explains the birth goddess Postverta from a child born the wrong way.^[1] Cicero has eyes that squint badly.^[1] Of people, their actions and ideas it is wrong-headed or perverse, as in Plautus, and depraved: Cicero speaks of a perverse and impious religion.^[1] Cicero also uses it of a cross-grained man he is free from having to court.^[1] Manilius uses it of something unnatural, bears trained in human arts.^[1] Church Latin glosses it perverse, evil.^[5] Köbler lists French pervers and German pervers among its later reflexes.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a day turned wrong and of a contrary man.^[1][3]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of a child born the wrong way.^[1][3]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of squinting eyes and of a depraved religion.^[1][3]
• 1st century AD – Manilius of unnatural tasks.^[1][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Turned the wrong way, reversed, topsy-turvy.^[1][2][4]
2. Distorted, askew; of the eyes, squinting.^[1][2]
3. Of people and their ideas, wrong-headed, perverse, misguided; depraved; cross-grained, ill-tempered.^[1][2][4][5]
4. Unnatural, abnormal.^[1]

Related words

• pervertō
• vertō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson