First Known Use: 1642
Dictionary
debauchery
noun de·bauch·ery \di-ˈbȯ-chə-rē, -chrē, -ˈbä-\
: bad or immoral behavior that involves sex, drugs, alcohol, etc.
plural de·bauch·er·ies
Full Definition of DEBAUCHERY
1
a : extreme indulgence in sensuality b plural : orgies
2
archaic : seduction from virtue or duty
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Examples of DEBAUCHERY
- 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)
Related to DEBAUCHERY
- Synonyms
- corruption, vice, depravity, immorality, iniquitousness, iniquity, libertinage, libertinism, licentiousness, profligacy, sin
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Next Word in the Dictionary: debauchmentPrevious Word in the Dictionary: debaucheeAll Words Near: debauchery
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