deprave

"I don't think you should censor books but there is this strange anomaly - it's common sense that films can deprave and corrupt, and that books can't."

From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2012

It has been 14 years since China officially banned console video games, worrying the living-room boxes would dumb down or deprave the brains of Chinese youth.

From Washington Post

On the contrary it would so deprave our currency that it would bring ruin, particularly to the wage earners of the country and those on fixed salaries.

From Time Magazine Archive

The legal definition of obscenity in Great Britain is that which tends "to deprave and corrupt."

From Time Magazine Archive

But, after all, he is a striking illustration of Plato's saying, that "Princes are never without flatterers to seduce them, ambition to deprave them, and desires to corrupt them."

From Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History by Horne, Charles F. (Charles Francis)

The education of life perfects the thinking mind, but depraves the frivolous.—Mme. de Staël.

From Pearls of Thought by Ballou, Maturin Murray

And then there is the money, which depraves when it comes in a certain way.”

From Other People's Money by Gaboriau, Émile

It seems that nature perverts itself before him, that his very presence depraves it.

From Là-bas by Wallace, Keene

Vice; for it depraves the best things we enjoy.

From Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies by Plutarch

An education which does not cultivate the will, is an education that depraves the mind.

From The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard by France, Anatole

Calling him a "depraved individual", the judge at Nottingham Crown Court handed him a two-year suspended prison sentence.

From BBC ● Apr. 9, 2026

Yet its parties, even at their most decadent and depraved, were never quite cool.

From Slate ● Mar. 30, 2026

Intimately acquainted with Richard’s malignity, these ruined royals know only too well the toll of his depraved machinations.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 26, 2026

In actuality, “The Housemaid” is about as depraved and delicious as a mainstream film can get, packed with narrative twists and guffaw-worthy choices from everyone involved.

From Salon ● Jan. 31, 2026

Nately reacted on sight with bristling enmity to this wicked, depraved and unpatriotic old man who was old enough to remind him of his father and who made disparaging jokes about America.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

I sought to make her conceive of our nation as a family, where every one was secured against want by the common provision, and against the degrading and depraving inequality which comes from want.

From Through the Eye of the Needle A Romance by Howells, William Dean

The facility of divorce has depraving effects, upon both sexes.

From Satires And Profanities by Foote, G. W. (George William)

These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste, and lessening its relish for sound food.

From Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4 by Randolph, Thomas Jefferson

One girl might receive from a book a hundred evil suggestions, hopelessly depraving her imagination, while upon another it might not leave a single evil trace.

From The Library and Society Reprints of Papers and Addresses by Bostwick, Arthur Elmore

But can only say that first we should get rid of all this depraving luxury.

From The Light Shines in Darkness by Maude, Aylmer