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Subversion   /səbvˈərʒən/   Listen
Subversion

noun
1.
Destroying someone's (or some group's) honesty or loyalty; undermining moral integrity.  Synonym: corruption.  "The big city's subversion of rural innocence"
2.
The act of subverting; as overthrowing or destroying a legally constituted government.  Synonym: subversive activity.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Subversion" Quotes from Famous Books



... possessed, in quality of dispenser of justice, with all the power which he as legislator thinks proper to give himself. But, where the legislative and executive authority are in distinct hands, the former will take care not to entrust the latter with so large a power, as may tend to the subversion of it's own independence, and therewith of the liberty of the subject. With us therefore in England this supreme power is divided into two branches; the one legislative, to wit, the parliament, consisting of king, lords, and commons; the other executive, consisting ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... without virtue? did he not forbid thee to aim at any action that should not be honorable? and what will be more prejudicial to thy credit, than the careless ruin of thy brothers' welfare? why, shouldst not thou be the pillar of thy brothers' prosperity? and wilt thou become the subversion of their fortunes? is there any sweeter thing than concord, or a more precious jewel than amity? are you not sons of one father, scions of one tree, birds of one nest, and wilt thou become so unnatural ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... crime and Gourlay's self-murder; but the crime was a trick among blacklegs, and the suicide was the madness of a gambler, who had risked his money and was ruined at the moment he wanted to ruin another. Surely Heaven had something else to do with its retributive lightnings than employ them, in subversion of all natural laws, in a cause so inferior in turpitude to others that every hour pass into oblivion, with more of a mark of natural, and less or none of supernatural chastisement. I thought I might be contented ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... ever made it the 'point and commendation of their tale.' Judging from its decline, they have predicted its fall. Half a century ago, the historian of the middle ages expected with an assurance that 'none can deem extravagant,' the approaching subversion of the Ottoman power. Although deprived of some of its richest possessions and defeated in many a well-fought field, the house of Othman still stands—amid crumbling monarchies and subjugated countries; the crescent still glitters on the Bosphorus, and still the 'tottering arch of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... should so easily be persuaded by the false apostles to return to the weak and beggarly elements of the Law. I would not be surprised to see my church perverted by some fanatic through one or two sermons. We are no better than the apostles who had to witness the subversion of the churches which they had planted with their own hands. Nevertheless, Christ will reign to the end of the world, and that miraculously, as He did during the ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... movements were hurried and tremulous. His countenance betokened a mind engrossed by a single purpose, in some degree foreign to the scene before him. An intensity and fixedness of features were conspicuous, that led me to suspect the subversion of ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... in a long statement, written when the uprising was but a few weeks old, declared that Bacon's "only aim has always been and is nothing else but of total subversion of the government." Thomas Ludwell and Robert Smith, who at the time were in England, on receiving reports of the rebellion, said that when the Indian raids began "some idle and poor people made use of the present ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

... suggestions of an unworthy ambition. If he punished heretics at home, it was partly to secure on his side the common sentiment of the Roman Catholic world, partly because the enemies of the Reformation had persuaded him that the change of religion necessarily involved the subversion of established order and of royal authority. If he made overtures to the Protestant princes of Germany, the flimsy veil of devotion to their interests was too transparent to conceal the total want of concern for anything beyond his own ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... he had formed, when he favoured the revolution of the 18th Fructidor, was now about to be realized. It was then an indispensable part of his plan that the Directory should violate the constitution in order to justify a subsequent subversion of the Directory. The expressions which escaped him from time to time plainly showed that his ambition was not yet satisfied, and that the Consulship was only a state of probation preliminary to the complete ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... no Duke of Brunswick," said Napoleon, sternly. "His name and titles have been buried on the battle-field of Auerstadt. What would he who sent you have to say if I were to inflict on the city of Brunswick that subversion with which, fifteen years ago, he threatened the capital of the great nation which I command?[22] The Duke of Brunswick has disavowed the insensate manifesto of 1792; one would have thought that with age reason had begun to get the better of his passions, and yet ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... disorder had to do with Mrs. Dempster's departure from her home, it is almost as certain she would never have gone had it not been for the unpaid bills haunting her consciousness, a combination of demon and ghost. The misery had all the time been growing upon her, and must have had no small share in the subversion of her microcosm. When that was effected, the evil thing that lay at the root of it all rose and pounced upon her. Wrong is its own avenger. She had been doing wrong, and knowingly for years, and now the plant of ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... a hero may have, the examples of Achilles and Aeneas show us, that all those are of small avail without the constant assistance of the gods—for the subversion and erection of empires have never been adjudged the work of man. How greatly soever, then, we may esteem of his high talents, we can hardly conceive his personal prowess alone sufficient to restore the decayed empire ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... Americans ever supposed, that one consequence of democratic principles, is, the subversion of marital power, or the confusion of the natural authorities in families. They hold, that every association must have a head, in order to accomplish its object; and that the natural head of the conjugal association is man. They do not, therefore, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... Theobald Wolfe Tone, for the subversion of English Government in Ireland, and the supreme sacrifice he made in the mighty effort to erect in its stead an independent Ireland free from all foreign denomination and control, was fittingly commemorated on Sunday last, when the annual pilgrimage ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous



Words linked to "Subversion" :   subvert, degradation, debasement, overthrow, subversive activity, corruption



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