The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pravity \Prav"i*ty\, n. [L. pravitas, from pravus crooked,
perverse.]
Deterioration; degeneracy; corruption; especially, moral
crookedness; moral perversion; perverseness; depravity; as,
the pravity of human nature. ``The pravity of the will.''
--South.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"depravity," 1540s, from Latin pravitas "crookedness, distortion, deformity; impropriety, perverseness," from pravus "wrong, bad," literally "crooked."
Wiktionary
n. (context obsolete English) perversion, depravity
Usage examples of "pravity".
Matter, the Kind so evil as to saturate with its own pravity even that which is not in it but merely looks towards it.
Matter brings to it, by its decline into Matter, by its very attention no longer to Essence but to Process--whose principle or source is, again, Matter, the Kind so evil as to saturate with its own pravity even that which is not in it but merely looks towards it.
Even if they admit that the unhappy condition within us is due to the pravity inherent in body, they will urge that still the blame lies not in the Matter itself but with the Form present in it--such Form as heat, cold, bitterness, saltness and all other conditions perceptible to sense, or again such states as being full or void--not in the concrete signification but in the presence or absence of just such forms.
And when custom steps in besides, and strengthens this pravity of nature, as has happened by means of impious teachers, then the evil is incurable, and leads astray multitudes to irreparable ruin.
But the prevailing doctrine of the eternity and inherent pravity of matter infected the primitive churches of the East.
And although Our dear sons Henry Kramer and James Sprenger, Professors of Theology, of the Order of Friars Preachers, have been by Letters Apostolic delegated as Inquisitors of these heretical pravities, and still are Inquisitors, the first in the aforesaid parts of Northern Germany, wherein are included those aforesaid townships, districts, dioceses, and other specified localities, and the second in certain territories which lie along the borders of the Rhine, nevertheless not a few clerics and lay folk of those countries, seeking too curiously to know more than concerns them, since in the aforesaid delegatory letters there is no express and specific mention by name of these provinces, townships, dioceses, and districts, and further since the two delegates themselves and the abominations they are to encounter are not designated in detailed and particular fashion, these persons are not ashamed to contend with the most .