defalcation

[dee-fal-key-shuhn, -fawl-]

noun

Law.

1. misappropriation of money or funds held by an official, trustee, or other fiduciary.

2. the sum misappropriated.

Other Word Forms

• nondefalcation noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of defalcation¹

1425–75; late Middle English: deduction from wages (< Middle French ) < Medieval Latin dēfalcātiōn- (stem of dēfalcātiō ) a taking away, equivalent to dēfalcāt ( us ) ( defalcate ) + -iōn- -ion

Example Sentences

According to the report, county supervisors may suspend Petersen for “defalcation or neglect of duty,” but the statutes do not define the meaning of the terms, officials said.

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“You have a keen sense of defalcation. Perhaps I should add a third D.”

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Chief among them are Carrodos’s manservant, Parkinson, “an unquenchable stickler for decorum,” and Louis Carlyle, a private investigator specializing in “defalcation and divorce.”

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“This defalcation is exacerbated by her not having told them exactly what she heard, only that she felt comfortable with a guilty verdict,” Judge Duval said.

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Another, about the meaning of the word “defalcation” in the Bankruptcy Code, must have made Justice Stephen G. Breyer, its author, wonder what he had done to deserve the assignment.

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Related Words

• dearth 
• defect 
• failing 
• failure 
• fault 
• flaw 
• frailty 
• glitch 
• insufficiency 
• lack 
• scarcity 
• shortage 
• shortcoming 
• weakness