Etymologically
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perversus

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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]

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