Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Misconduct in public office.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Evil conduct; fraudulent or tricky dealing; especially, misbehavior in an office or employment, as by fraud, breach of trust, extortion, etc.
Wiktionary
- n. corrupt behaviour, illegitimate activity, especially by someone in authority
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Evil conduct; fraudulent practices; misbehavior, corruption, or extortion in office.
WordNet 3.0
- n. misconduct in public office
Etymologies
- From French malversation, from malverser, from Latin male versari ("behave badly"). (Wiktionary)
- French, from malverser, to misbehave, from Old French, from Latin male versārī : male, badly; see mel-3 in Indo-European roots + versārī, to behave; see wer-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“What's more, I believe the voice of millions of netizens will bring justice, fairness, democracy and social progress, and face the corruption and malversation down.”
“Secondly by the flight and voluntary desertion of the younger Fairford, the advocate; on account of which, he served both father and son with a petition and complaint against them, for malversation in office.”
“On the heels of the revelation that Santorum has a mortgage at market rate and that he does not himself pay for work-related expenses comes the news that he established a charity that pays out money to the needy, which is clearly a malversation.”
“There are magnificent avenues of elm-trees, great gardens encircled by the moat, and a circumference of walls about a huge manorial pile which represents the profits of the maltote, the gains of farmers-general, legalized malversation, or the vast fortunes of great houses now brought low beneath the hammer of the Civil Code.”
“Cases at Saint Helena, alluding to a confidential servant whom he had been obliged to dismiss for malversation.”
“Adam Smith warned that monopoly leads to negligence and malversation and undermines liberty and justice.”
“For in the prevalence of sense and spirit over stupidity and malversation, all reasonable men have an interest; and as intellectual beings we feel the air purified by the electric shock, when material force is overthrown by intellectual energies.”
“Director, certainly; for he hinted at malversation of shares: but the Company still stood as united as the Hand-inHand, and as firm as the Rock.”
“She had been born, but it was only gossip said so, in Tasmania: her grandfather had been exported for some hanky-panky mid-Victorian scandal; malversation of trusts was it?”
“There had been more than one such case brought to public notice at the time, in which there seemed to have been an egregious malversation of charitable purposes.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘malversation’.
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phrontistery - m
from phrontistery.info
mabble, mabsoot, macadamize, macarism, macarize, macaronic, macerate, macerator, machair, machairodont, machicolation, machinule and 898 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Official Misconduct
Words describing types of misconduct by those in public office.
malversation, embezzlement, peculation, racketeering, jobbery, misappropriation, defalcation, venality, favouritism, favoritism, nepotism, gerrymandering and 44 more...
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All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
anacoluthon, defenestration, hypnopomp, hypnagogue, idioglossia, panopticon, tatterdemalion, abalone, caltrop, miasma, paroxysm, smalt and 491 more...
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Most Obscure Words
acatalectic, acosmism, acuate, acuminate, adscititious, adytum, akratisma, alieniloquy, allelomorph, allochiria, allodium, alnage and 620 more...
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Words
My list of words.
veritable, facetious, nadir, quixotic, apropos, acquiesce, ostensible, insipid, egregious, inveterate, coax, adroit and 409 more...
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megsarah's Words
lygophilia, rhapsodomancy, lynch, ebb, throb, hollow, somniloquy, incense, caress, sashay, ephemeral, quiver and 98 more...
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List Erine
cool mint antiseptic
shalom, cattywampus, bourgeoisie, aerophile, traverse, grotto, epicurean, ex cathedra, nautilus, epitaph, lathe, continuum and 753 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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C. S. Bird – Grandiloquent Dictionary
All the words from the Grandiloquent Dictionary.
946 of these 2700 words do not yield any results in six different dictionaries, hence many of them might be misspellings.
More in...abacinate, abcedarian, abderian, ablegate, abligurition, ablutophobia, abnormous, acarophobia, acathasia, accipitrine, accidia, accubitus and 2690 more...
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Politrix
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
vexillology, blowback, impunity, extraterritoriality, plenipotentiary, filibuster, pundit, jingoistic, gerrymander, swiftboat, espionage, ipsedixitism and 151 more...
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An Unspecific Gathering
Recently added to be organized (perhaps) later.
metaeuphoria, metaeuphoria, protologism, neologism, contextual, commingling, meta, euphoria, elucidation, disambiguation, hypertextual, kenspeckle and 136 more...
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norrell's Words
hush, dove, euphoria, nebulae, bryn mawr, darling, phoenix, nape, cream, butterscotch, cosmos, frost and 190 more...
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Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabinet
Oddments culled from my "main" lists that belong in a display cabinet of their own, plus sundry other curiosities. :-)
zeugma, ziggurat, xiphoid, xeric, whizgigging, whangdoodle, viviparous, vivific, vinolent, verjuice, vellicate, velleity and 1193 more...
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19 c.
some of the interesting words i've had to look up while reading 19th century lit
maugre, connate, alembic, azote, vaticination, valetudinarian, dight, scutcheon, lammergeyer, chamois, asseverate, prebendary and 199 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for malversation.

yarb He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his malversations were so notorious, that George was compelled to escape from the pursuits of justice.
- Gibbon, Decline and Fall..., XXIII. v Jun 9, 2009