misfeasance
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˌmɪsˈfiːzəns/
- Formal
:
mala conducta
- If Mr. Van Bramer is aware of any police misfeasance in this matter, wouldn't he take the issue to the police or the City Council?
- nonfeasance or misfeasance
Examples
-
Against the backdrop of administrative procedures and judicial review, it is relatively challenging to engage in at least the most obscene forms of misfeasance through administrative lawmaking.
Academic text (2018) -
This definition is broad enough to include revelations of mismanagement, including nonfeasance, misfeasance, and malfeasance.
Academic text (1997) -
"I really hope he did, or we'll have to arrest him for misfeasance to a police officer on official business, a Class Three felony.
Fiction book (1994) -
This points to some significant misfeasance within WSDOT and the Governor's office.
Blog text (1) -
Anyone worth his or her salt knows that no president, Repub or Dem, has the ability or power to magically resurrect an economy as wounded as ours was after eight years of Republican misfeasance.
Blog text (27) -
Courts at several levels have addressed in some manner the elements of negligence, either nonfeasance or misfeasance, as they rationalized their decisions: duty of care; breach of duty; injury (damage); and proximate cause.
Academic text (1991) -
However, this "injury" cannot be attributable to the negligence of educators unless it can be demonstrated that said negligence, either nonfeasance or misfeasance, as a proximate cause, was present and affected other students in the same class.
Academic text (1991) -
However, the court did hold, on the basis that the government had conceded for the purpose of the preliminary issue that the Minister had revoked the license with knowledge that it constituted a breach of British obligations under Article 30 and would injure the plaintiff's trade, that the Minister had on those facts committed the tort of misfeasance in public office.
Academic text (1994) -
The absence of clear guidance on what it means to violate fundamental public policy fosters the type of administrative misfeasance that Big Mama Rag contemplates in articulating the principled enforcement function of the vagueness doctrine.
Academic text (2016) -
The city council was held accountable for their misfeasance in handling public funds.
Synonyms
131
4.6
Wrong behavior by someone in a trusted job
23
6.2
A wrong action that hurts someone or breaks a rule
20
9.6
An illegal action by a public official in their job
16
8.0
Behavior that is not socially acceptable
15
3.6
Bad behavior that breaks rules or causes trouble
1
7.0
Actions that break the law or are unfair
1
7.1
A bad action that breaks rules or harms other people
Dishonest behavior by a public official, especially using public money wrongly
Antonyms
How Wrongful
355
4.8
- Formal
20
9.6
- Formal
1
9.9
- Specialized
80
6.5
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
misfeasance = feasance (transparent) = mis + feasance
Formed by the productive prefix 'mis-' (wrongly/badly) attached to the noun 'feasance' (performance), yielding 'wrongful performance'.
Etymology
Misfeasance breaks into mis- meaning 'wrong', as in mistake, and feasance, from an old root meaning 'to do', seen in words like fact and factory. So, misfeasance literally means 'wrong doing' and is used when someone, often a public official, performs a legal duty in the wrong or improper way.