Debase, vitiate, deprave, corrupt, debauch, pervert mean to cause a person or thing to become impaired and lowered in quality or character and share certain distinctions in implications and connotations with the adjectives (usually participial adjectives) corresponding to the verbs, debased, vitiated, depraved, corrupted (but more often, corrupt), debauched, perverted.
Debase (see also ABASE) and debased imply a loss of worth, value, or dignity and are widely applicable.
Vitiate and vitiated imply impairment through the introduction of a fault, a defect, or anything that destroys the purity, validity, or effectiveness of a thing.
Deprave and depraved usually imply pronounced moral deterioration; thus, a person who has a debased taste cannot enjoy what is really good or beautiful if it lacks showy surface qualities which catch his attention, but a person with a depraved taste finds satisfaction only in what is wholly or partly obscene or prurient.
Corrupt (both verb and adjective: for the latter see also VICIOUS) and corrupted imply a loss of soundness, purity, integrity through forces or influences that break down, pollute, or destroy: the terms are applicable to things which are subject to decay, disintegration, or irreparable contamination of any sort.
Often also, the terms imply seduction, bribery, or influence as leading to a moral breakdown or to an immoral act.
Debauch and debauched imply a demoralizing and depraving through such corrupting influences as a life of pleasure, ease, or sensual indulgence: they suggest the weakening, more often than the loss, of such qualities as loyalty to one’s allegiance or duties, fitness for responsibility or high endeavor, and moral purity or integrity, and they often also connote dissoluteness or profligacy.
Pervert and perverted imply a twisting or distorting of something (sometimes someone) from what it is in fact or in its true nature, so as to debase it completely or make it incapable of proper or correct application; to pervert the meaning of a text is to twist that meaning in interpreting it so that it will serve one’s own ends or seem to prove one’s thesis; to pervert the facts in a case is to give a distorted and, usually, personally advantageous view of them; to pervert the ends of nature is to use one’s appetites or natural desires for other ends than those which are normal and in accordance with nature.