debauchery
de·bauch·ery
noun \di-ˈbȯ-chə-rē, -chrē, -ˈbä-\ plural de·bauch·er·ies
Definition of DEBAUCHERY
1
a : extreme indulgence in sensuality b plural : orgies
2
archaic : seduction from virtue or duty
See Examples of DEBAUCHERY
- He later regretted the debauchery of his youth.
- He recalled the evening's debaucheries with regret.
- Like St. Augustine carousing his student days away in fourth-century Carthage, [Thomas] Merton had succumbed to such physical and intellectual debaucheries as New York offered a Columbia undergraduate in the 1930's: wine, women and some Communist fellow-traveling. —Mark Silk, New York Times Book Review, 30 Mar. 1986
- … they regard all music and everything pleasant as forms of debauchery, and will not confess to any knowledge or practice unless you can convince them that you are as abandoned a profligate as themselves. —Bernard Shaw, letter, 25 Nov. 1948
- I have seen a dozen boys stretched on the grass within a circumference of fifty feet, all of them smoking cigarettes and reading dime novels. It was a scene of inspiring debauchery, even to the most craven spectator. —H. L. Mencken, Happy Days, 1940
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Origin of DEBAUCHERY
(see 1debauch)
First Known Use: 1642
Related to DEBAUCHERY
Synonyms: corruption, vice, depravity, immorality, iniquitousness, iniquity, libertinage, libertinism, licentiousness, profligacy, sin
Related Words: bad, badness, blackness, evil, evildoing, ill, turpitude, villainy, wickedness, wrong; atrociousness, evilness, heinousness, sinfulness, unscrupulousness, viciousness, vileness, villainousness; devilry (or deviltry), fiendishness; corruptness, debasement, degeneracy, degeneration, depravedness, dissoluteness, dissolution; indecency, lasciviousness, lechery, lewdness, looseness, perversion, pervertedness, wantonness; abomination, anathema, taboo (also tabu); criminality, reprehensibleness; baseness, despicableness, dirtiness, lowness, meanness; lousiness, miserableness, wretchedness
Near Antonyms: good, right; honesty, honor, integrity, legitimacy, probity, rectitude, scrupulosity, scrupulousness, uprightness; goodness, righteousness, virtuousness; blamelessness; chastity, innocence, perfection, pureness, purity, spotlessness; cleanness, correctness, decency, decorousness, propriety, rightness, seemliness
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