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CORRUPTION
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Inducement (as of a public official) by improper means (as bribery) to violate duty (as by commiting a felony)
Example:
he was held on charges of corruption and racketeering
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):
inducement; inducing (act of bringing about a desired result)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Destroying someone's (or some group's) honesty or loyalty; undermining moral integrity
Example:
the big city's subversion of rural innocence
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):
debasement; degradation (changing to a lower state (a less respected state))
Derivation:
corrupt (corrupt morally or by intemperance or sensuality)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles
Example:
Rome had fallen into moral putrefaction
Synonyms:
corruption; degeneracy; depravation; depravity; putrefaction
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):
immorality (the quality of not being in accord with standards of right or good conduct)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain
Synonyms:
corruption; corruptness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):
dishonesty (the quality of being dishonest)
Attribute:
corrupt (lacking in integrity)
incorrupt (free of corruption or immorality)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "corruption"):
infection (moral corruption or contamination)
venality (prostitution of talents or offices or services for reward)
jobbery (corruptness among public officials)
Sense 5
Meaning:
Decay of matter (as by rot or oxidation)
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural processes
Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):
decay (the process of gradually becoming inferior)
Sense 6
Meaning:
In a state of progressive putrefaction
Synonyms:
corruption; putrescence; putridness; rottenness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("corruption" is a kind of...):
putrefaction; rot (a state of decay usually accompanied by an offensive odor)
Context examples:
But when a creature pretending to reason could be capable of such enormities, he dreaded lest the corruption of that faculty might be worse than brutality itself.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
It was not alone that it was composed of all the ills of mortality and with the pungent, acrid smell of blood, but it seemed as though corruption had become itself corrupt.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Pursuing these reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
“Be silent, you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud, false son! Moan for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your loss of him, moan for mine!”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Standing by the table, with his finger in the page to keep the place, and his right arm flourishing above his head, Traddles, as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke, Lord Castlereagh, Viscount Sidmouth, or Mr. Canning, would work himself into the most violent heats, and deliver the most withering denunciations of the profligacy and corruption of my aunt and Mr. Dick; while I used to sit, at a little distance, with my notebook on my knee, fagging after him with all my might and main.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they have land or people enough to govern; sometimes the corruption of ministers, who engage their master in a war, in order to stifle or divert the clamour of the subjects against their evil administration.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
As if she were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and left to corruption and decay, the girl we had followed strayed down to the river's brink, and stood in the midst of this night-picture, lonely and still, looking at the water.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
These struldbrugs and I would mutually communicate our observations and memorials, through the course of time; remark the several gradations by which corruption steals into the world, and oppose it in every step, by giving perpetual warning and instruction to mankind; which, added to the strong influence of our own example, would probably prevent that continual degeneracy of human nature so justly complained of in all ages.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
