Pravity

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Deep moral corruption or the quality of being wicked and perverse in character
2. The condition of being morally twisted, evil, or corrupt in thought and conduct
3. Wickedness of nature, a state of moral perversion or corruption in a person or act

Etymology: "Pravity" is a rare word meaning moral corruption or depravity, and its history runs through the Latin adjective "pravus," which meant "crooked" or "twisted" before it came to mean morally bent. From it the Romans formed "prāvitās," a noun carrying the same sense of crookedness, and that noun passed into Middle French as "pravité." English took the word from there, so its shape reflects a French intermediary rather than a direct Latin borrowing. The original image is physical: something bent out of its true line. That literal sense of twistedness is what gives the word its moral edge, since a person or thing turned from what is straight and right is, in Latin terms, crooked. The same root gave English the adjective "prave," which is now archaic, so "pravity" survives as the more durable of the two.