perversity
/pəˈvəːsɪti
/noun (plural perversities)
1A deliberate desire to behave in an unreasonable or unacceptable way; contrariness: they responded with typical perversity...
- We therefore do him the injustice of mistaking his infirmity for perversity.
- Many of their performances testify to organizational stupidity; a few testify only to the perversity of fate.
- There is no point in pretending a faceless individual in Brussels sent a habitats directive to Ireland through perversity.
Synonyms
contrariness, perverseness, awkwardness, unreasonableness, difficultness, waywardness, capriciousness, wilfulness, refractoriness, stubbornness, obstinacy, obduracy, mulishness, pig-headedness
informal cussedness
British informal bloody-mindedness
archaic frowardness
unreasonableness, irrationality, illogicality, wrong-headedness, irregularity, inappropriateness
2The quality of being contrary to accepted standards or practice; unreasonableness: the perversity of being able to carry a gun but not purchase a drink...
- Meanwhile, the diaries reveal a later life of flamboyant perversity.
- They use perversity to create a false impression of profundity.
- There is a gorgeous perversity in the idea of a woman forced to a blush by the reality of her own naked body.
3The quality of being sexually perverted.The play was virtually unseen for 200 years, cast off for smuttiness and "perversity"....
- Certainly, it is common xenophobic practice to attribute sexual perversity or illness to another nation or people.
- It deals frankly, openly, and graphically with sexual perversity and fetishism.
Rhymes
- frame level
- frame-maker
- frame narrative
- frame narrator
- frame of mind
- frame of reference
- frame pulley
- framer
- frame rate
- frame saw
- frameset
- frameshifting
- frameshift mutation
- framesmith
- frame store
- frame story
- frame stud
- frame-tale
- frame tent
- frame timbers
- frame-up
- framework
- frameworker
- frame yard
- framing