ENGLISH
REFERENCE

perpetrated

v.
C1 Advanced US //ˈpɝpəˌtɹeɪtɪd// UK //pˈɜːpɪtɹˌeɪtɪd// per·pe·trat·ed

v. to carry out a harmful, immoral, or illegal act. You use this word when someone does something wrong, like a crime or a trick.

v. to carry out or commit a harmful, illegal, or immoral action. Transitive; requires a direct object, typically a noun phrase denoting a crime or deception.


SIMPLE

The police are looking for the person who perpetrated the crime.

CONTEXTUAL

Investigators discovered that the fraud was perpetrated by a small group of high-level executives over several years.

COMPLEX

The report details how the systemic injustices were perpetrated against the local population through a series of discriminatory laws and economic policies.

Synonyms
Usage

The verb is transitive and almost exclusively takes negative objects such as 'crime', 'fraud', 'hoax', or 'violence'.

Pitfall

The hero perpetrated a great deed.The hero performed a great deed.Perpetrate has a strong negative prosody; it is only used for bad actions, not good ones.

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