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

Stain not fair acts with foul intentions; maim not uprightness by halting concomitances, nor circumstantially deprave substantial goodness. 

From Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' an Appreciation by Whyte, Alexander

It is not because war kills that it is the devil, but because it depraves; and it is because it depraves that it is condemned by the religious consciousness.

From Home Missions in Action by Allen, Edith H.

Sometimes they produce an insufficient performance of it; and this, by closing an avenue of elimination, poisons the blood, and depraves the organization.

From Sex in Education or, A Fair Chance for Girls by Clarke, Edward Hammond

At the same time the State depraves those who govern.

From Anarchism by Eltzbacher, Paul

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

From Other People's Money by Gaboriau, Émile

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 Sue, Eug?ne

However perverse and depraved the ideas that animate the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah, they inspire the kind of conviction that motivates people to fight grimly on against the odds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026

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

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 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

Besides, how much slovenly thinking, which is slovenly expressed—vexing the public ear and depraving the taste and understanding of the reader—would never appear if the writer had to append his signature to his production?

From Bygones Worth Remembering, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Holyoake, George Jacob

Ease and luxury were enervating, were depraving me.

From The Sword of Honor, volumes 1 & 2 or The Foundation of the French Republic, A Tale of The French Revolution by Sue, Eug?ne

The depraving effects of this freedom of divorce upon both sexes, may be easily imagined.

From The Women of the Arabs by Robinson, Charles S. (Charles Seymour)

Second, treason was made to consist in such vague and infinitely elastic kinds of action as inspiring discouragement, misleading opinion, depraving manners, corrupting patriots, abusing the principles of the Revolution by perfidious applications.

From Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) Essay 1: Robespierre by Morley, John

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 Janet, Paul