corruption

Corruption most commonly refers to a state in which members of organizations or institutions are engaging in illegal or otherwise dishonest practices to benefit themselves.

The term is most often used in the context of such rulebreaking by people who are powerful or who are responsible for the well-being of others, such as politicians, government officials, and police officers.

Corruption is a noun form of corrupt, which can be an adjective used to describe people who act in this way (or their actions), or a verb meaning to destroy the integrity of someone or something or cause someone to be dishonest.

More generally, corruption can refer to the act or process of someone or something becoming corrupt, depraved, or debased.

More specifically, corruption can refer to the alteration of a word or text in a way that deviates from its original or intended form.

Example: The investigation revealed a long history of corruption within the agency that extends to its highest ranks. 

The first records of the word corruption come from the 1300s. It ultimately derives from the Latin verb corrumpere, meaning “to ruin” (or literally “to break to pieces”), from the verb rumpere, “to break.”

Corruption happens when the people who are supposed to be upholding the rules break the rules to benefit themselves—typically to get richer or more powerful. The word is most commonly used to describe shady dealings by officials in the government or other organizations (as opposed to ordinary citizens). Perhaps the most common and well-known example of corruption is bribery, and in fact corruption can be used as a synonym of bribery.

When people refer to the corruption of a person, it usually involves a debasing of their values or morality (at least in the judgment of the person using the word). In the context of language and words, corruption happens all the time as words evolve and get introduced into other languages. This sense of the word is less negative than others. In the context of software, data corruption and file corruption happen due to various errors that result in files being lost or unable to be opened.

What are some other forms related to corruption?

• anticorruption (noun, adjective)
• overcorruption (noun)
• precorruption (noun)
• corrupt (adjective, verb)

What are some synonyms for corruption?

• crookedness
• depravation
• bribery

What are some words that share a root or word element with corruption? 

• corruptible

What are some words that often get used in discussing corruption?

• politics
• government
• police
• morals
• integrity
• crime
• file
• data

Corruption is most commonly used in the context of institutional corruption, especially in government and politics.

A federal plan to crack down on corruption will go to a new round of negotiations in Parliament as the Morrison government vows to revisit a reform first aired two years ago | @CroweDM https://t.co/36EpNxR2tV

— The Sydney Morning Herald (@smh) June 16, 2020

There is so much potential for corruption in Government. Who really tracks where the money goes and whether kickbacks are paid. Who can actually find out if ‘favours’ are done – let alone how much they cost.

— Jessica Simor QC (@JMPSimor) June 17, 2020

Denny O’Neil made timeless comics by making comics about his time. The revolutions of the 60s, the excesses of the 70s, the corruption of the 80s, the facades of the 90s—he used super hero tropes as brushstrokes to paint a picture of who we are and who we could be. RIP. pic.twitter.com/eWwI6tfnrp

— Tom King (@TomKingTK) June 12, 2020

Is corruption used correctly in the following sentence?

The corruption of your values has led you to make many bad decisions.