perversity

From perverse +‎ -ity, from Middle French perversité, from Latin perversitās.

• IPA^(key): /pə(ɹ)ˈvɜː(ɹ)sɪti/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

perversity (countable and uncountable, plural perversities)

1. The quality of being perverse.
   • 2017 October 18, Seth Kubersky, “A weekend full of puppetry-themed entertainment is just the ticket, unless you’re pupaphobic”, in Orlando Weekly‎^[1]:

     Hey kids, the word of the week is "pupaphobia"! Others may enjoy being frightened by chainsaw-wielding maniacs and cannibal clowns, but my Halloween is never complete without a murderous Muppet or two. Thankfully, a pair of events last Friday the 13th provided a perfect double feature of puppet perversity.

2. Something which is perverse.
   • 1995, Andreu Mas-Colell, Michael D. Whinston, and Jerry R. Green, Microeconomic Theory, Oxford University Press, page 112:

     More generally, for the ULD property to hold, the substitution effects (which are always well behaved) must be large enough to overcome possible “perversities” coming from the wealth effects.

   • 2025 May 11, Monica Padrick, “Don Tyxote” (11:26 from the start), in Krapopolis‎^[2], season 2, episode 21, spoken by Shlub (Matt Berry):

     “Of all this world's perversities, there is only one I cannot abide: the kink-shame. I'm off!” “You can't walk out! I'm walking out!”