malfeasance

What it means

1. countableuncountableWrongdoing.

   For starters, back-burnering malfeasance, usually in the form of graft, risks repeating the kind of disastrous mistakes that the United States made in Afghanistan.

   2024 August 14, Anna Mulrine Grobe, “US weapons help Ukraine advance. Will concerns about corruption put that at risk?”, in The Christian Science Monitor

   Synonyms: misconduct, misdoing, crime, delict, delinquency, error, misdeed, misdemeanor

2. countableuncountablelawMisconduct or wrongdoing, especially by a public official and causing damage.

   By then, Mr. Altman had gathered more allies. Mr. Nadella, now confident that Mr. Altman was not guilty of malfeasance, threw Microsoft’s weight behind him.

   2023 December 9, Tripp Mickle, Cade Metz, Mike Isaac, Karen Weise, “Inside OpenAI’s Crisis Over the Future of Artificial Intelligence”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

In a sentence

For starters, back-burnering malfeasance, usually in the form of graft, risks repeating the kind of disastrous mistakes that the United States made in Afghanistan.

2024 August 14, Anna Mulrine Grobe, “US weapons help Ukraine advance. Will concerns about corruption put that at risk?”, in The Christian Science Monitor

Where it comes from

1. Latinmalefaciō“to do evil”
2. Old Frenchmalfaisance
3. Englishmalfeasance

From Old French malfaisance, derived from malfaire, maufaire (“to do evil”), from Latin malefaciō (“to do evil”), from male (“evilly”) + faciō (“to do, make”).