misrule
Americannoun
-
bad or unwise rule; misgovernment.
-
disorder or lawlessness.
verb (used with object)
verb
noun
-
inefficient or inhumane government
-
disorder
Other Word Forms
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.
See Examples For:
His party's years in power, however, became associated with misrule and corruption.
From BBC ● Nov. 5, 2025
Nigeria's election next week marks nearly a quarter century of democracy in Africa's most populous nation, which in previous decades had become a byword for coups and military misrule.
From Reuters ● Feb. 17, 2023
The byproduct of Haiti’s institutional and security pandemonium is the death rattle of an economy that was already supine following years of misrule compounded by the pandemic.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 7, 2022
They accuse him and his powerful family, which includes several siblings who until recently held top government positions, of precipitating the crisis through corruption and misrule.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 7, 2022
Three centuries of rule or misrule make a considerable impression on any people.
From Prowling about Panama by Miller, George A.
They also want an overhaul of a system of governance, saying successive administrations since independence from Britain in 1948 have misruled the country leading to economic and social crises.
From Seattle Times ● May 29, 2022
Mr Kabila has misruled Congo for the past 17 years, after he took over from his father, who was shot by a bodyguard.
From Economist ● Jun. 1, 2017
Far from being at the heart of a new Asia, sullen and misruled Central Asia languishes, for now, on the periphery.
From Economist ● Aug. 20, 2015
There will be no dramatic moment of closure on the era of Muhammad Hosni al-Sayyid Mubarak, the man who ruled and misruled Egypt for 30 years before being overthrown in early 2011.
From Newsweek ● Jun. 25, 2012
With such deplorable fatuity was Mexico misruled, and entangled in a double war upon the rights of her own people and against the United States.
From History of the War Between Mexico and the United States, with a Preliminary View of its Origin, Volume 1 by Mayer, Brantz
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.
