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.
In April 1930, Gandhi concluded his pivotal salt march, breaking the British monopoly on salt production - a charged symbol of colonial misrule.
From BBC • Nov. 29, 2025
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
“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
They accuse him and his powerful family that included several siblings holding top government positions of plunging the country into the crisis through corruption and misrule.
From Seattle Times • Jul. 3, 2022
He was obliged to correct twenty years of misrule, or rather no rule, and he courageously gave the remainder of his life to the task.
From A History of Germany From the Earliest Times to the Present Day by Taylor, Bayard
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.
