depravity
noun
Simple meaning
Inborn corruption, entailing the belief that every facet of human nature has been polluted, defiled, and contaminated by sin.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihpravuhteeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪpˈɹævəti
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
The state or condition of being depraved; moral debasement.
A corrupt or depraved or degenerate act or practice
countable
A particular depraved act or trait.
uncountableChristian theology
Inborn corruption, entailing the belief that every facet of human nature has been polluted, defiled, and contaminated by sin.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The state or condition of being depraved; moral debasement.
Used this way, depravity is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in ethics or values contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Ethics/values
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The Calvinist doctrine that everyone is born in a state of corruption as a result of original sin.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.