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

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

This diathesis is produced by those agencies which deprave the blood and waste vitality.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 68, June, 1863 by Various

This faculty is more liable to perversion than any other, and excessive eating occasions more sickness, and depraves the animal faculties more than all other causes combined.

From The Illustrated Self-Instructor in Phrenology and Physiology by L. N. Fowler

The letters and arts engender luxury, and luxury is one of the powerful instruments of corruption in morals: it destroys courage, lowers the character, and, by another consequence, depraves and corrupts the taste even.

From Elements of Morals With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the State by Paul Janet

Cornelia," replied Antonicq, proud of the noble words of his bride, "tyrants rule less, perhaps, through force that terrorizes than through corruption that depraves.

From The Pocket Bible or Christian the Printer A Tale of the Sixteenth Century by Eug?ne Sue

Such teaching is interesting as showing how the admission of caprice in the world of phenomena reacts upon the moral sense and depraves our conception of God and salvation.

From Christian Mysticism by William Ralph Inge

To this it is to be added "that the possession of power depraves men."

From Anarchism by Paul Eltzbacher

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

From Slate ● Mar. 30, 2026

But even people who are really depraved have something they love, he says.

From BBC ● Mar. 7, 2026

“I apologize to all who were hurt by this clearly terrible and depraved individual.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 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

“My pubescent nemesis. What a promising day this appears to be. I am apparently to be run over by a streetcar and robbed simultaneously, thereby setting a Paradise record. Get away, you depraved urchin.”

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

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 Arthur Elmore Bostwick

No one can fail to recognise the depraving influence of a corrupt imagination; and the corruption may spring, not only from suggestions from without, but from those which rise spontaneously in our minds.

From The Map of Life Conduct and Character by William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Better to devote one’s self to a useful and humble profession than employ one’s talent in depraving morals, and degrading souls.

From Elements of Morals With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the State by Paul Janet

D, that it bears marks throughout of the depraving influence of the ancient Lectionary practice.

From The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark by John William Burgon

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

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