🔊 Listen to the word Turpitude

TUR-pih-tood

Definition

(noun) Wickedness or depravity, especially of a kind considered morally base or shameful.

Example

The immigration officer cited moral turpitude as the grounds for denial — a legal category so broad it had swallowed everything from fraud to jaywalking depending on the decade.

Word Origin

Turpitude derives from the Latin turpitudo, meaning “baseness” or “ugliness,” from turpis — “base,” “vile,” or “disgraceful.” The same root gives us turpid and turpitude’s close relative turpis, a word Romans used to describe anything that violated standards of dignity and honor. It entered English in the 15th century through legal and theological contexts, where it described conduct so morally degraded it placed a person outside the bounds of decent society.