1
as in irritable
easily irritated or annoyed
how can you be so cheerful one day, and so perverse the next?
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in corrupt
having or showing lowered moral character or standards
social conservatives who believe that Hollywood is a perverse world that exerts an unhealthy influence on the young
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in stubborn
sticking to an opinion, purpose, or course of action in spite of reason, arguments, or persuasion
a fact so self-evident that not even the most perverse of opponents could deny it
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
4
as in inappropriate
not appropriate for a particular occasion or situation
a convicted criminal seemed like a perverse choice for a bank employee
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of perverse
Imposing a duty to monitor and act on worrisome content could create perverse incentives.
—
Anat Lior, The Conversation, 26 May 2026
Bettors on the sites are making billions of dollars in trades every week, even as questions around insider trading and how the markets can create perverse incentives for people to manipulate real world outcomes continue to vex the companies.
—Bobby Allyn, NPR, 19 May 2026
But this idea—that the more motivated partisans are to discriminate against Black voters, the less racist that discrimination is—is a perverse inversion of the Fifteenth Amendment.
—Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, 19 May 2026
At first, this may sound like a willfully perverse way to market a useless product.
—Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 11 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for perverse
Anat Lior, The Conversation, 26 May 2026
Bettors on the sites are making billions of dollars in trades every week, even as questions around insider trading and how the markets can create perverse incentives for people to manipulate real world outcomes continue to vex the companies.
—Bobby Allyn, NPR, 19 May 2026
But this idea—that the more motivated partisans are to discriminate against Black voters, the less racist that discrimination is—is a perverse inversion of the Fifteenth Amendment.
—Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, 19 May 2026
At first, this may sound like a willfully perverse way to market a useless product.
—Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 11 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for perverse
Recent Examples of Synonyms for perverse
Adjective
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But Maguire, now 43, became sad and irritable, and didn’t want to be around his newborn.—
Keith Wagstaff,
Los Angeles Times,
10 June 2026
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Additionally, Owens' youngest child, Titus, who was just a toddler when his mother died, was confused, irritable and inconsolable in the weeks after her death, Dias shared.—
Lynsey Eidell,
PEOPLE,
2 June 2026
Adjective
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Fujimori is linked to the authoritarian and corrupt legacy of the government of her late father, Alberto Fujimori, in the 1990s.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
7 June 2026
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Of course, all of this convenient acquiescence will sound familiar in the United States, where our own Congress and Department of Justice have been nothing if not servile to a brazenly corrupt executive.—
Daniel Alarcón,
New Yorker,
4 June 2026
Adjective
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Researchers have been looking into ways to reduce the stubborn inflammation HIV causes in the central nervous system.—
Smita S. Iyer,
The Conversation,
8 June 2026
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The findings, published in 2025 in Brain Stimulation, point to a fundamentally new way of treating one of the most stubborn psychiatric conditions, using a miniaturized implant that delivers brief bursts of stimulation only during key moments of exposure therapy.—
Samantha Agate,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
8 June 2026
Adjective
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That same month, Lambert was investigating an assault and began sending inappropriate messages to the victim in that case.—
Liam Quinn,
PEOPLE,
10 June 2026
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Duncan did not respond to requests for comment seeking details about the conduct investigators found inappropriate.—
Nicole Buss,
Sacbee.com,
9 June 2026
Adjective
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Video of the crash shared with the Statesman showed the airplanes colliding, spinning together and crashing to the ground in a fiery explosion.—
Nicole Blanchard,
Idaho Statesman,
11 June 2026
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During his interview with The New York Times after his ouster, Pelley provided some context for his fiery statements directed at Bilton during that tumultuous all-hands meeting.—
Marlow Stern,
Variety,
11 June 2026
Adjective
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Even when degraded, enzymes have stable backbones that might be capable of catalyzing reactions, said Sudha Rajamani, an astrobiologist at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune who wasn’t involved in the study.—
Siddhant Pusdekar,
Quanta Magazine,
1 June 2026
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According to the company, QTT enables highly secure and resilient position, navigation, and timing (PNT) services, helping maintain accurate timing and synchronization even when traditional GPS and radio-frequency signals are unavailable, degraded, or intentionally jammed.—
Bojan Stojkovski,
Interesting Engineering,
30 May 2026
Adjective
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Regardless, Stanton is adamant that there is no hypothetical future in which raccoons could realistically become good house pets.—
Shoshi Parks,
Popular Science,
10 June 2026
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Alonso was adamant that the school board should seek opportunities to either repurpose or lease properties that schools vacate, not sell them.—
Miami Herald,
Miami Herald,
9 June 2026
Adjective
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Years of improper cleaning can turn them into a petri dish rather than a pretty place to chop veggies.—
Heather Bien,
Southern Living,
5 June 2026
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The issue stems from the improper application of primer, which is necessary to ensure proper bonding between the glass panel and the sliding frame, the recall report states.—
Michelle Del Rey,
USA Today,
4 June 2026
Cite this Entry
“Perverse.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/perverse. Accessed 14 Jun. 2026.
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