debauch

Heiner Müller, the experimental German playwright who specialized in grimly absurdist Shakespeare rewrites, refashioned “Titus Andronicus” as a postmodern, postcolonial debauch.

From New York Times ● Apr. 4, 2019

“I did really debauch myself to achieve a visual at the time” is how he remembers it.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 15, 2016

We’ve not had a debasement of the currency, a debauch of the exchange rate, so those fears and warnings aren’t all that well founded.

From Forbes ● Feb. 13, 2015

Lastly, the Gabfest crew takes a look at Google’s new smartphone for your face, Google Glass: Will it extend our human powers or finally debauch them for good?

From Slate ● May 22, 2013

All the blood and lymph had been drained out of him by an enormous debauch of work, leaving only a frail structure of nerves, bones, and skin.

From "1984" by George Orwell

Other practically sure signs of neurosis: fear of not being able to draw a deep breath, burning in the abdomen, repeated belching, stomachaches after "emotional debauches," "distresses that come before breakfast."

From Time Magazine Archive

Huston filmed Sodom dimly lit, and shied clear of the debauches of DeMille's epics.

From Time Magazine Archive

Thus the devil thrives in proportion, is always ready to enrich the rich man with ruin, the wise man with folly, the beautiful woman with degradation, the kind, average man with debauches of savagery.

From Time Magazine Archive

Good ideas are kept out of circulation because they are concealed by highbrow language, whereas lowbrow journalism debauches American speech.

From Time Magazine Archive

Once I amused myself without blame, now I pay for my poor debauches with torments.

From En Route by J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

The cinematic language suggests that Burning Man may be debauched, pointless and a massive indulgence, but that it also champions decadence in pursuit of freedom.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026

Firstman stars as Peter, a debauched millennial aging out of a New York scene that never cared about him as a person in the first place.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026

Peter Schickele, an American composer whose career as a writer of serious concert music was often eclipsed by that of his antic alter ego, the thoroughly debauched, terrifyingly prolific and mercifully fictional P.D.Q.

From New York Times ● Jan. 17, 2024

The Hallmark Experience panel provided a window into filmmaking techniques and scriptwriting instead of prodding attendees to whoop it up at debauched moments caught on camera.

From Salon ● Dec. 23, 2023

“You are meant to be working separately, not in this...this debauched juxtaposition. I have warned you about collaborating, it is not the proper way to exhibit your skills.”

From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern

Germany, haunted by the experience of hyperinflation in 1923 and after World War Two, is deeply fearful of debauching the central bank by printing money to lend to governments.

From Reuters ● Nov. 28, 2011

The graver peril is that the precious-metals fever will sap more and more confidence in paper money, debauching its value.

From Time Magazine Archive

His novel is a grotesque, exciting and impudent tale of student ribaldry, army debauching and mystic romance.

From Time Magazine Archive

Our emasculated contemporary, not content with debauching Eatanswill politics, must go far afield and drag from his grave an obscure and feeble being whom he claims to make one of his besmirched heroes. 

From Pickwickian Studies by Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

Bragdon, at least, knew what he hoped for, impossible as it might be,—a total escape from the debauching work he was doing.

From One Woman's Life by Robert Herrick