From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishperversityper‧ver‧si‧ty /pəˈvɜːsəti $ pərˈvɜːr-/ noun [uncountable] STRANGEthe quality of being perverse Max refused the money out of sheer perversity.
Examples from the Corpus
perversity• With a perversity that the pest has become known for, the gypsy moth came roaring back a couple of years later.• The reasons for this apparent perversity are probably now lost to us for all time.• My perversity had seemed to me amusing.• Or words are preserved, perhaps through some occupational perversity, that mix totally inconsistent meanings.• But she was marrying Changez out of perversity, I was sure of it.• It was aware of being a scene of perversity, it knew its own despair.• I am a reasonable man, but, forced to revenge, I am not without a certain sense of perversity.• Out of sheer perversity, the thinking human seems impelled to say something contrary to whatever received opinion has been yelling at him. 