perverselyadv.

a1513 R. Fabyan New Cronycles Eng. & Fraunce (1516) II. f. clxxiii^v He lyst nat kenne Our sacred fayth but it right peruersly Lyst of his wyll.

c1559 R. Hall Life Fisher in J. Fisher Wks. (1876) ii. p. liii Had not he bene other-wise perversly bent.

1610 Bible (Douay) II. Isa. i. 16 Wash you, be cleane, take away the euil of your cogitations from mine eies: cease to do peruersely.

1667 A. Cowley To Royal Soc. iv, in T. Sprat Hist. Royal-Soc. sig. B2 From Words, which are but Pictures of the Thought, (Though we our Thoughts from them perversly drew).

1727 W. Harte Statius' 6th Thebaid in Poems 179 The chiefs perversely blind Neglect the sign, nor see th' event behind.

1794 A. L. Barbauld Reasons for National Penitence 36 If we did not perversely interfere..all revolutions that have taken place might have been accomplished without violence or anarchy.

1847 R. W. Emerson Poems 36 Stream could not so perversely wind, But corn of Guy's was there to grind.

1897 B. Stoker Dracula xi. 145 Perversely sleep would try to come then when I did not want it.

1932 D. Lindsay Devil's Tor (2002) 318 It can do neither of us good for you to remain perversely silent on a topic of importance to both.

1952 B. Pym Excellent Women i. 5 I felt, perversely, that I did not want to see her.

1990 J. Halperin Novelists in their Youth i. 42 We tend, perversely, to worship what we are not.