How to Use depravity in a Sentence

depravity

noun
  • People were shocked by the depravity of her actions.
  • He was sinking into a life of utter depravity.
  • As plain as the crooked nose on his face, the depravity is the point.
    — Ben Travers, IndieWire, 12 Sep. 2024
  • And so the depravity of the crime just shocks the conscience.
    — Audrey Conklin, FOXNews.com, 2 June 2025
  • The depth of his depravity is beyond the pale.
    — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 9 Feb. 2026
  • To think that the last girl in the Usui line would behave with such depravity!
    — Literary Hub, 28 May 2026
  • What greater depravity could there be than to declare war on Dad just for the throne?
    — Itxu Díaz, National Review, 12 Aug. 2020
  • How slippery is the slope of depravity?
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 26 June 2026
  • As the details of the attack spread around the world, the depths of the depravity became clear.
    — Kevin Shalvey, ABC News, 7 Oct. 2024
  • The depravity is crowded out by the mob’s blind hatred of black people.
    — Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor, 28 Oct. 2017
  • And by the way, a shocking story of media depravity on a most solemn day for this country.
    — Fox News, 11 Sep. 2018
  • And a few good men and women, fighting to survive amidst all the malice and depravity.
    — Erik Kain, Forbes, 9 Jan. 2025
  • Somebody who could have done this to her and then live the high life is just a testament to his coldness and depravity.
    — CBS News, 10 Aug. 2019
  • There's an honesty in its depravity.
    — Raven Brunner, PEOPLE, 4 Feb. 2026
  • This is the sort of depravity that deficit obsessions produce.
    — Alex Pareene, The New Republic, 5 May 2021
  • Still, the detective couldn’t help but marvel at the grownups’ depravity.
    — Simon Rich, The New Yorker, 8 July 2021
  • We are used to it, even as new levels of depravity are uncovered on a weekly basis.
    — Jack Sheehan september 4, Literary Hub, 4 Sep. 2025
  • What looks like depravity to Maeve is Dolores’s sense of purpose.
    — Sandra Upson, WIRED, 4 June 2018
  • Even the silly gryllus, a medieval monster with a face and legs but no body, was a symbol of human depravity.
    — Marylynn Salmon, The Conversation, 13 July 2022
  • Luther, like Breaking Bad and other shows of that era, was very dark and plumbed the depths of human depravity.
    — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Feb. 2025
  • The reason was the depravity that existed here, from the Russian era.
    — Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 21 Feb. 2022
  • For some of us, a dirty house suggests depravity when it’s owned by a woman but can be dismissed as a harmless mess when it’s attributed to a man.
    — Holly Barker, Discover Magazine, 12 Sep. 2022
  • Is the idea that these scandalous relationships reflect the depravity and decadence of the elites?
    — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Mar. 2025
  • Kendrick Lamar and Drake made a show out of accusing one another of depravity.
    — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 17 Dec. 2024
  • The large-scale maiming of soldiers reminded civilians of the depravity of modern war.
    — Los Angeles Times, 8 June 2022
  • The book is informative, stark and relentlessly grim; the depravity of some of the crimes can be shocking.
    — Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 19 Oct. 2023
  • Needless to say, the party at home is going to look a little different than the decadence and depravity of the infield.
    — Lucas Aulbach, The Courier-Journal, 4 Sep. 2020
  • The hostile circumstances in which Marx made his imitations led some to see his dolls as symbols of depravity.
    — Literary Hub, 16 Dec. 2025
  • Even in the present state of the world, the murder, wounding, and kidnapping of so many defenseless civilians is shocking in its depravity.
    — Fintan O’Toole, The New York Review of Books, 10 Oct. 2023
  • The absurd part is that corruption and depravity are not crimes, and neither are adultery and masturbation.
    — Louis Menand, New Yorker, 1 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'depravity.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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