the.com/pervert
Someone whose sexual behavior harms others or breaks the law, not merely one who differs from social norms.
means Someone who has deviated from accepted sexual norms, or more broadly, anyone who has twisted something from its proper or natural use into something corrupt.
from From Latin pervertere — 'per' (thoroughly) plus 'vertere' (to turn) — meaning to turn completely around or upend. For centuries 'pervert' simply meant to corrupt or misdirect anything: a perverted argument, a perverted translation, a perverted sense of justice. The word turned (fittingly) toward its narrower sexual meaning in English by the 19th century, as 'sexual pervert' became a clinical label before the clinical part quietly dropped away, leaving just the turn.
- legal use
- originally meant anyone who twisted the truth
- etymology
- from latin pervertere, to turn the wrong way
- clinical shift
- 19th century psychiatry rebranded it as sexual deviance
- internet era
- now also a compliment in certain group chats