Sunday Word: Turpitude

[sallymn]

turpitude [tur-pi-tood, -tyood]

noun:
1 vile, shameful, or base character; depravity
2 a vile or depraved act

Examples:

Article 87 (c) of the constitution states that to qualify for a member of the federal parliament, the person must not have been convicted of a criminal offence involving 'moral turpitude'. (Tika R Pradhan, Even with a murder conviction, lawmakers might still be able to hold on to their seats, The Kathmandu Post, October 2019)

Renovated, the farmhouse with its square courtyard offers the happiness of a life in the country, far from the turpitude of big cities. (How do you bring the sun into an old square courtyard farmhouse facing north?, Espaciel, September 2020)

It is the worst form of moral turpitude because in academic plagiarism there is tangible evidence as the plagiarised material is scanned and identified, but in discussion and discourse the perpetrator easily gets scot free after committing intellectual vandalism. (M Nadeem Nadir, Intellectual vandalism, The Express Tribune, January 2024)

In the household of my childhood, saying you were sick was an evil as great as lying, a turpitude that had a special name. (Mary Schmich, Why getting the flu might actually be good - for your psyche, at least, Chicago Tribune, January 2024)

It is indeed well that you have come to me: for, innocent of the world's turpitude, you fare to a city of strange sins and strange witcheries and sorceries. (Clark Ashton Smith, The Witchcraft of Ulua)

I've never been disbarred, committed or convicted of moral turpitude, and the only time I was arrested, it was a case of mistaken identity... I didn't know the guy I hit was a cop. (Paul Levine, To Speak for the Dead)

Origin:

'depravity, infamy, inherent baseness or vileness,' late 15c, from Old French turpitude (early 15c), from Latin turpitudinem (nominative turpitudo) 'baseness,' from turpis 'vile, foul, physically ugly, base, unsightly,' figuratively 'morally ugly, scandalous, shameful,' a word of uncertain origin. (Online Etymology Dictionary)