What is "perverse"

Usage examples of "perverse".

George looked half asleep when his father made an allusion that threatened to provoke a reminiscence of his bygone days, and Laura had a perverse way of looking so coldly intent upon anything but Mr.

Such a perverse intention takes away the truth of the sacrament, especially if it be manifested outwardly.

The masochistic desire to be exploited that passes as the collective desire of his audience seems almost as perverse as the Puritan desire to be scourged by God.

One particular favorite of metaphysicians, trying to divert attention from the accusations of their political foes, was that humanity itself, fleeing the potential created by the Great Metaphysical Breakthrough, had willed The nothings into existence as a form of perverse self-protection.

We must bear in mind, however sadly, that psychopathology is no longer the exclusive preserve of the degenerate and perverse.

It was obvious that Robert derived a fierce and perverse pleasure from his stupid lie, but the girl was in a state of smouldering rage which blazed out at him the moment his friends had gone away.

In the latter she had a multitude of perverse inclinations, which corresponded exactly with his own unfortunate requirements, while possessing a discretion that would have done credit to a Trappist nun.

That it was highly honourable to themselves and to their office that there resided not in the tribuneship more strength to harass the senate and to excite disunion among the several orders, than to resist their perverse colleagues.

All our failures here proceed from bad education, want of capacity, or a perverse and unpliable disposition.

I entered the room that I was seeing something charged and private and vaguely perverse in actually witnessing the Eddgars in their moment of collaboration.

Nikko thought, lay in their perverse tendency to produce a sense of absentmindedness rather than of enlightenment whenever they poured their memories into the core persona.

It was easy to deduce that this man must have been wholly insane, but that he probably had a streak of perverse outward logic which made the naive Akeley - already prepared for such things by his folklore studies - believe his tale.

Warden of Bagdad, governor of Irak, prince of el Jezira, Atabeg of Mosul--on up the glittering stairs of power rode Zenghi, while the Franks ignored the tidings from the East with the perverse blindness of their race--until Hell burst along their borders and the roar of the Lion shook their towers.

Think of Edward of Caernarvon, the first Prince of Wales, a perverse life, Pennyfeather, and an unseemly death, then the Tudors and the dissolution of the Church, then Lloyd George, the temperance movement, Noncomformity, and lust stalking hand in hand through the country, wasting and ravaging.

Already I was aware that the interlocked radiator grilles of our cars formed the model of an inescapable and perverse union between us.