misrule
Americannoun
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bad or unwise rule; misgovernment.
-
disorder or lawlessness.
verb (used with object)
verb
noun
-
inefficient or inhumane government
-
disorder
Other Word Forms
- misruler noun
Etymology
Origin of misrule
1300–50; Middle English misreulen (v.), misreule (noun). See mis- 1, rule
Vocabulary lists containing misrule
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.
They badly underestimated her massive star power, and they underestimated how much their decades of misrule had alienated most of the population.
From BBC • Jan. 14, 2026
Lawmaker Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, first deputy head of the parliamentary committee on anti-corruption policy, said the shakeup partly sought to demonstrate that Kyiv saw cracking down on misrule as a key element of its Western integration.
From Reuters • Jan. 25, 2023
Just ask Haitians in Miami who have long suffered under terror and misrule, or ask the Central Americans who fled civil wars.
From Washington Post • Dec. 28, 2022
“The pattern of many leaders is to be exalted in life and forgotten after death,” the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said in a eulogy that seemed to speak to a world plagued by misrule.
From New York Times • Sep. 19, 2022
Exactions, crushing hope out of the people, the general insecurity of property, and the misrule which has blighted these fine Asiatic provinces everywhere, sufficiently explain its decadence.
From Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume I (of 2) Including a Summer in the Upper Karun Region and a Visit to the Nestorian Rayahs by Bird, Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy)
Definitions 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.
