PERVERSE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does perverse mean? 

• PERVERSE (adjective)
  The adjective PERVERSE has 3 senses:

1. marked by a disposition to oppose and contradict

2. resistant to guidance or discipline

3. deviating from what is considered moral or right or proper or good

  Familiarity information: PERVERSE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PERVERSE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Marked by a disposition to oppose and contradict

Context example:

took perverse satisfaction in foiling her plans

Similar:

negative (characterized by or displaying negation or denial or opposition or resistance; having no positive features)

Derivation:

perverseness (deliberate and stubborn unruliness and resistance to guidance or discipline)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Resistant to guidance or discipline

Synonyms:

contrary; obstinate; perverse; wayward

Context example:

wayward behavior

Similar:

disobedient (not obeying or complying with commands of those in authority)

Derivation:

perverseness; perversity (deliberate and stubborn unruliness and resistance to guidance or discipline)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Deviating from what is considered moral or right or proper or good

Synonyms:

depraved; perverse; perverted; reprobate

Context example:

the reprobate conduct of a gambling aristocrat

Similar:

corrupt (lacking in integrity)

Derivation:

perverseness; perversity (deliberately deviating from what is good)

 Context examples 

Nay, perverse as it seemed, she doubted whether she might not have felt less, had she been less attended to.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

"Jo March, you are perverse enough to provoke a saint! You don't intend to make calls in that state, I hope," cried Amy, surveying her with amazement.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

And yet, I was perverse enough to feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and silent, through the misty streets.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Mr. Wickham's society was of material service in dispelling the gloom which the late perverse occurrences had thrown on many of the Longbourn family.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

In music she thought him unreasonable, and in the matter of opera not only unreasonable but wilfully perverse.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Yet I am of opinion, this defect arises chiefly from a perverse, restive disposition; for they are cunning, malicious, treacherous, and revengeful.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

But you have now shewn me that you can be wilful and perverse; that you can and will decide for yourself, without any consideration or deference for those who have surely some right to guide you, without even asking their advice.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

But at last there seemed a perverse turn; it seemed all at once as if he were more afraid of its being a bad sore throat on her account, than on Harriet's—more anxious that she should escape the infection, than that there should be no infection in the complaint.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger—when I found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile—when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders—even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

That she should struggle against the fascinating influence of his delightful art—delightful nature I thought it then—did not surprise me either; for I knew that she was sometimes jaundiced and perverse.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)