peccant practice
- noun
- Formal
:
práctica pecaminosa
- Journalists exposed several peccant practices in the government procurement department.
Examples
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The board investigated the peccant practice that led to the financial scandal.
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Strict policies are enforced to prevent any peccant practice within the institution.
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The company was involved in a peccant practice that harmed its employees.
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Many organizations have peccant practices that go unnoticed.
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Journalists exposed several peccant practices in the government procurement department.
-
The board investigated the peccant practice that led to the financial scandal.
-
Strict policies are enforced to prevent any peccant practice within the institution.
Synonyms
117
3.7
Bad actions that break the law or moral rules
1
7.0
Actions that break the law or are unfair
Antonyms
How Wrong
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward adjectival modification: 'peccant' (morally wrong) directly qualifies 'practice' (habitual procedure), so the sense 'immoral or unethical behavior' follows compositionally from the parts. Although 'peccant' is relatively rare in everyday speech, a B1 learner who knows both constituent meanings would readily infer the combined meaning, since adjective + noun composition of this type is common cross-linguistically.
Etymology
Peccant practice uses peccant, an old word for 'sinful' or 'guilty', and practice, meaning a usual action. Imagine a habit with a dark stain of guilt, so it now means an action that is 'wrong' or 'unethical'.