PERVERSE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Perverse

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/pərvˈərs/ Listen

adjective

Perverse adj.

Turned aside; hence, specifically, turned away from the right; willfully erring; wicked; perverted. "The only righteous in a world perverse."

Obstinate in the wrong; stubborn; intractable; hence, wayward; vexing; contrary. "To so perverse a sex all grace is vain."

Synonyms: Froward; untoward; wayward; stubborn; ungovernable; intractable; cross; petulant; vexatious. Perverse, Froward. One who is froward is capricious, and reluctant to obey. One who is perverse has a settled obstinacy of will, and likes or dislikes by the rule of contradiction to the will of others.

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Etymology of 'Perverse'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Perverse" Quotes from Famous Books

... her express a preference, still more delighted to be able to gratify it by his own exertions. He took off his coat and waistcoat, turned up his shirt cuffs, and set to work. For an hour he laboured under her directions, struggling with pieces of furniture as perverse and obstinate as his wife, but ...

— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... said their good things before these indeliberate authors. Even their own kind—children—have not preceded them. No child in the past ever found the same replies as the girl of five whose father made that appeal to feeling which is doomed to a different, perverse, and unforeseen success. He was rather tired with writing, and had a mind to snare some of the yet uncaptured flock of her sympathies. "Do you know, I have been working hard, darling? I work to buy things ...

— The Children • Alice Meynell

... a perverse accident turned good Mrs. Teachum's design of giving them pleasure into their sorrow, and raised in their little hearts nothing but strife and anger: for, alas! there happened to be one apple something larger ...

— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding

... she had made, yet not meaning to make it, of her love to Romeo. She would fain have recalled her words, but that was impossible: fain would she have stood upon form, and have kept her lover at a distance, as the custom of discreet ladies is, to frown and be perverse, and give their suitors harsh denials at first; to stand off, and affect a coyness or indifference, where they most love, that their lovers may not think them too lightly or too easily won; for the difficulty of attainment increases the value of the object. ...

— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... a creditor To dun me for a debt But I was "cramped" or "bu'sted"; or I never knew one yet, When I had plenty in my purse, To make the least invasion,— As I, accordingly perverse, Have courted no occasion. ...

— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

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