mismanage
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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mismanages,
present (3rd person singular)
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mismanaged,
past participle, past
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mismanaging
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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mismanagesimple
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mismanagessimple
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have mismanagedperfect
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has mismanagedperfect
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am mismanagingprogressive
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are mismanagingprogressive
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is mismanagingprogressive
-
have been mismanagingperfect progressive
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has been mismanagingperfect progressive
Past
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mismanagedsimple
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had mismanagedperfect
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was mismanagingprogressive
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were mismanagingprogressive
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had been mismanagingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mismanage
Explanation
To mismanage is to handle something badly. A company will go bankrupt if its leaders mismanage it. If you mismanage your allowance, you’ll be out of money in no time. To manage is to handle or run something, so to mismanage is to make a mess of something you're doing or running. A general manager could mismanage a basketball team by trading away good players. The President can mismanage the country by making political and economic mistakes. You can mismanage your time if you goof off and don't get your work done. To mismanage is to mishandle.
Vocabulary lists containing mismanage
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In that interview, Ms Yulo said that contrary to allegations, she did not mismanage her son's money and had in fact deposited it at a bank in Manila.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2024
“We didn’t have any money to mismanage, because we didn’t have any money,” Spence said of the JFK8 campaign.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 14, 2022
As he approaches a likely third term in power that would start next year, it could be politically damaging if his government were to mismanage Evergrande.
From New York Times ● Sep. 26, 2021
“We’re in control of the game, and then we mismanage the puck four times in the last seven, eight minutes,” Coach Todd Reirden said.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 1, 2018
But supposing that they should greatly mismanage this revenue.
From The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke
Reporting from The New York Times has highlighted the way that the jail complex mismanages the stationing of its nearly 8,000 uniformed staff members, with some rarely interacting with detainees at all.
From New York Times ● May 9, 2022
Wired’s investigation is a deep dive that demonstrates how your data can be at risk if a massive company mismanages internal access to it or carelessly leaves it open to outsiders.
From The Verge ● Nov. 19, 2021
"It’s not uncommon that a conservator mismanages money and profits off of that," Kaplan said.
From Fox News ● Oct. 1, 2021
And it's many a tear He must have shed at the way England mismanages it.
From Peg O' My Heart by J. Hartley Manners
I have been very happy sometimes during the past year; and whatever the blind Fate that mismanages the world may elect to demand in payment, I shall not haggle.
From The Cords of Vanity A Comedy of Shirking by James Branch Cabell
Its capital city Tehran is in the process of dying because of a grotesquely mismanaged water supply.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 27, 2026
He also mismanaged promotional cards, gave unpurchased merchandise to clients and abused the company’s corporate credit card, according to the complaint.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
"Even though I mismanaged orders terribly I was steering my own business wheel," she said.
From BBC ● Dec. 5, 2025
Reached by telephone, Marino declined to comment on the letter or the mismanaged director’s search.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 10, 2025
The Osage were also able to retrieve at least a portion of the oil funds mismanaged over decades by the U.S. government.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
Former workers said development of the game was chaotic and accused its boss, Leslie Benzies, of mismanaging the studio.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026
The group were were being punished for "mismanaging" the battery exchanges for Spiro motorbikes, which they denied.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
Her three opponents have accused her of mismanaging the office, presiding over growing legal payouts and making a series of missteps that infuriated members of the City Council.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026
Western Nexperia officials also contended in Dutch court that Wingtech’s Zhang was mismanaging the company and had conflicts of interest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2025
For weeks before Garfield's death, medical journals and general newspapers had accused Bliss of mismanaging his care.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
