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

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 Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

For, as Aristotle says rightly, the moving of laughter is a fault in comedy, a kind of turpitude that depraves some part of a man's nature without a disease.

From The Function of the Poet and Other Essays by James Russell Lowell

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

Civilisation, in this case, depraves the birds, as often it does men.

From The Truth About Woman by C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine) Hartley

Should I select something that shows how war depraves, or something that shows how it ennobles?

From Pebbles on the shore [by] Alpha of the plough by A. G. (Alfred George) Gardiner

All outlay devoted to culture, to beauty, to invigoration has dried up; all that survives is what stimulates, what depraves and befouls; frivolities, substitutes and swindles.

From The New Society by Arthur Windham

You would respect the movie more if it stuck with its depraved indifference to civilized behavior, rather than attempting a death-bed conversion to decency.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026

He also accused Donaldson of telling lies many times over the years and added, he never imagined the former party leader could have been so "depraved".

From BBC ● Jun. 23, 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

We’ve watched Macbeth change from a noble, trusted, dedicated soldier, willing to sacrifice his life for king and country, to a wretched, depraved, corrupt murderer who no longer has feelings of guilt or morality.

From "Tears of a Tiger" by Sharon M. Draper

Too much moral anguish has a depraving effect in the long run.”

From Robert Orange Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange by John Oliver Hobbes

If the American practice were half as depraving as it ought logically to be in their conditions, their social system would drop to pieces.

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

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 Eug?ne Sue

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

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