perverse

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   marked by a disposition to oppose and contradict

   The plans were foiled by a perverse villain.

2. 2
   adj

   Turned aside while against something, splitting off from a thing.

   Any man who succeeds in diverting the public taste, or in turning back a perverse stream which will flow in the direction of the ditch, leaves a mark, as it were, and cannot be overlooked by posterity.

3. 3
   adj

   Morally wrong or evil; wicked; perverted.

   Looking at Barbara one would have considerable difficulty detecting a perverse side to her nature. Her expression was demure, shy, and apprehensive. But she recognized the demonic aspect of her personality and admitted it. I felt most alive when I felt most perverse. At college, sleeping with boys had a perverse quality. I slept with a boy friend of one of my girl friends, and I was proud of it. I bragged about it because I had done something perverse. Another time, I slept with a man, fat and ugly, who paid me for it. I was very proud. I felt I had the ability to do something different.

4. 4
   adj

   Wayward; vexing; contrary.

   [The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.[…]Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, and that in several cases these bacteria were dividing and thus, by the perverse arithmetic of biological terminology, multiplying.

5. 5
   noun

   A chiral opposite of something; a mirror image with opposite handedness.

   If two antipodal points move continuously on the sphere, they trace out what are called symmetric figures. These figures have corresponding elements equal, and are equal in area, but are not in general superposable. The one is, in fact, the perverse of the other.

6. 6
   verb

   To pervert.

   This rule hath been always for the commodity of that kingdom, where as the powers have been thus by them perversed.

7. 7
   adj

   deviating from what is considered moral or right or proper or good

8. 8
   adj

   resistant to guidance or discipline

Etymology

From Middle English perverse, pervers, from Old French pervers, from Latin perversum (“thoroughly turned”), past participle of pervertere, from per- (“thoroughly”) + vertere (“to turn”).