Both Uses of
debauchery
in
A Tale of Two Cities
- Allowing for my learned friend's appearance being careless and slovenly if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each other to surprise, not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus brought into comparison.†
Chpt 2.3 *debauched = corrupted or seduced from virtue, duty, or allegiance OR excessively drank, engaged in casual sex, and/or drug abuse while partying
- But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villainy were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that came into court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench.†
Chpt 2.2
Definitions:
-
(1)
(debauchery) extreme indulgence in pleasures -- especially those considered immoral or harmful, such as drinking, partying, or other reckless behavior
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
In the form, debauch or archaically in the form debauchery the word more commonly means "to corrupt or seduce from virtue, duty, or allegiance" as when Edmund Burke wrote "Learning not debauched by ambition," and "The republic of Paris will endeavor to complete the debauchery of the army."