Debauch

English

Noun

Debauch (plural Debauches)

An act of debauchery.
An orgy.

Verb

Debauch (third-person singular simple present debauches, present participle debauching, simple past and past participle debauched)

(transitive) to morally corrupt someone; to seduce
(transitive) to debase something

Adjectives for Debauch

veritable; riotous; rudimentary; prolonged; unwonted; limitless; grisly; abnormal; drunken; secret; fictional.

Synonyms for Debauch

corrupt, pervert, debase, defile, degrade, pollute, seduce, adulterate, contaminate.

Thesaurus

abuse, adulterate, alloy, bacchanal, bacchanalia, bacchanalian, bastardize, bat, be promiscuous, bender, betray, binge, bout, brutalize, bust, canker, carousal, carouse, celebrate, celebration, chase women, cheapen, coarsen, commit adultery, compotation, confound, contaminate, corrupt, cut loose, debase, debauchery, debauchment, deceive, decoy, defile, deflower, degenerate, degrade, demoralize, denature, deprave, desecrate, despoil, devalue, dissipate, dissipation, distort, drinking bout, drunk, drunken carousal, escapade, fling, force, fornicate, free living, grovel, guzzle, hell around, high living, infect, inveigle, jag, jollify, jolly, killing pace, lark, lead astray, let go, let loose, let off steam, licentiousness, live hard, lure, make merry, make whoopee, mislead, misuse, orgy, party, pervert, philander, ploy, plunge into dissipation, poison, pollute, potation, prostitute, pub-crawl, raise hell, rake, randan, randy, rape, ravage, ravish, revel, riotous living, roister, ruin, run riot, saturnalia, seduce, see life, skylark, sleep around, soil, spree, step out, sully, swing, symposium, taint, tear, tempt, toot, twist, ulcerate, undo, violate, vitiate, vulgarize, wallow, wanton, warp, wassail, whoop it up, whore, wingding, womanize

Etymology

1590s, from Middle French debaucher (“entice from work or duty”), from Old French desbaucher (“to lead astray”), from de- + bauch (“beam”), from Frankish balko,^[1] from Proto-Germanic *balkô, from Proto-Indo-European *bhelg- (“beam, plank”); latter origin of balk.

Evolution of sense unclear; may be literally “to shave/trim wood to make a beam” or may be “to leave/lure someone from a workshop”, Frankish balk perhaps also meaning “workshop”.