peculate

American  

[pek-yuh-leyt] / ˈpɛk yəˌleɪt /

verb (used with or without object)

peculated, peculating

1. to steal or take dishonestly (money, especially public funds, or property entrusted to one's care); embezzle.

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peculate British  

/ ˈpɛkjʊˌleɪt /

verb

1. to appropriate or embezzle (public money)

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Other Word Forms

• peculation noun
• peculator noun
• unpeculating adjective

Etymology

Origin of peculate

First recorded in 1740–50; verb use of peculate “embezzlement” (now obsolete), from Latin past participle and noun pecūlātus “embezzled; embezzlement,” equivalent to pecūlā(rī) ) “to embezzle,” literally, “to make public property private” + -tus suffix of verbal action, derivative of pecu “wealth, livestock, movable property”; peculiar, -ate ¹

Example Sentences

It would appear that many charges of the biographers were made upon the authority of a peculating servant whom Bront� had angered by dismissal.

From Project Gutenberg

He was once the Shah’s Prime Minister: he peculated, and was disgraced.

From Project Gutenberg

He is coarse, uneducated, and vulgar; he never picked up any semblance of the class from whom he peculated; and has lived on, as he began, a "low comedy villain," and no more.

From Project Gutenberg

He knows how pedants hoodwink people, how priests act the hypocrite, how physicians act the rake, how lawyers peculate.

From Project Gutenberg

Or shall I tell him the story of Davoust at Hamburg, when the Syndicate accused him of peculating, and mentioned some millions that he had abstracted from the treasury.

From Project Gutenberg