malversation

English

Etymology

From French malversation, from malverser, from Latin male versari (“behave badly”). Compare Spanish malversación (“embezzlement”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mælvəˈseɪʃən/

Noun

malversation (countable and uncountable, plural malversations)

1. corrupt behaviour, illegitimate activity, especially by someone in authority
   • 1549, chapter XIX, in The Complaynt of Scotland:

     the euyl exempil of ther maluersatione prouokyt the pepil til adhere to vice & to detest vertu.

   • 1668 July 3rd, James Dalrymple, “Thomas Rue contra Andrew Houſtoun” in The Deciſions of the Lords of Council & Seſſion I (Edinburgh, 1683), page 548

     The Decreet was for Sallary, and it was offered to be proven, that Rue (for his Malverſation) was by warrand from General Monk, excluded from Collection that year.

   • 1923, Powys Mathers, transl., The Thousand Nights and One Night:

     The walī looked angrily on my brother, saying: ‘Shameless ill-doer, it is quite clear from these marks upon your back that you have practised every sort of crime and malversation.’

   • 1935, T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, Part I:

     I see nothing quite conclusive in the art of temporal government,
     But violence, duplicity and frequent malversation.

   • 1963, C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 2nd Revised edition, Vintage Books, published 2023, →ISBN, page 35:

     In addition to their absolute power they were wasteful and extravagant, their malversations were constant and enormous, and they treated the local whites with an arrogance and superciliousness that galled these little potentates with their two or three hundred slaves.

French

Etymology

From malverser +‎ -ation, from Latin male (“badly”) versari (“behave”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mal.vɛʁ.sa.sjɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

malversation f (plural malversations)

1. malversation, corruption

Further reading

• “malversation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.