What does perversity mean?
Perversity names a stubborn, contrary, or deliberately unreasonable quality in a person or situation. It suggests more than simple bad luck: the word implies an active resistance to common sense, convention, or the expected course of events. “The perversity of fate” is a familiar literary use, while “the perversity of human nature” presents opposition to social or moral expectations as part of a broader human tendency. The term can also have an older formal meaning for behavior considered abnormal or outside accepted sexual norms, though that sense is less common today. In ordinary use, perversity is more likely to describe a conspicuous habit of doing the opposite of what is sensible than a minor disagreement. It is a useful word for expressing irritation, literary irony, or the sense that circumstances have deliberately conspired to frustrate expectations.
nounPerversity is stubborn or deliberate opposition to what is reasonable, expected, or conventional. It can also refer, especially in older or formal usage, to a departure from accepted sexual behavior.
- Stubborn or deliberately contrary behavior, especially conduct that is needlessly unreasonable or unconventional.
- A quality or habit of being contrarian, capricious, or resistant to accepted standards.
- In older and some formal contexts, conduct regarded as a departure from accepted sexual behavior.
"His perversity made him insist on doing the task in precisely the way he knew it should not be done."
"The perversity of the weather turned the perfectly planned picnic into a soaking wet affair."
"She studied the perversity of human nature in her account of the rebellion."
The plural is uncommon; the word is normally used in the singular.
"The novel explores the perversities of human behavior."
Perversity is the word for when someone chooses the most contrary option not merely by mistake, but seemingly for the sake of opposition itself.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does perversity come from?
Perversity comes through Old French perversité from Latin perversitas, a noun formed from perversus, meaning “turned the wrong way” or “inverted.” The underlying Latin root is vertere, “to turn,” which also appears in words such as verse, version, and convert. The English sense developed from the idea of turning away from what is proper, reasonable, or expected.
Related word forms
How perversity is actually used
The word usually conveys deliberate or habitual opposition to what is reasonable or expected. In modern English it is often mildly critical or literary; its older sexual sense is more formal and may sound dated.