embezzle
verbUK /ɪmˈbɛz.əl/ · CA, US /ɪmˈbɛz.əl/
Etymology From Middle English embesilen, from Anglo-Norman embesiler, embesillier, embeseillier (“to steal, cause to disappear”), from em- + Old French besillier (“to torment, destroy, gouge”), of unknown origin.
1
Business, Law To steal or misappropriate money that one has been trusted with, especially to steal money from the organisation for which one works.
- You waste your education in burglary. You should do one of two things. Either you should forge or you should embezzle. For my own part, I embezzle.1903, H. G. Wells, “Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation”, in Twelve Stories and a Dream:
- You let Dunsey have it, sir? And how long have you been so thick with Dunsey that you must collogue with him to embezzle my money?1861, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC:
1 more example
- A major accident and embezzlement of its funds seem to have been the only disasters it escaped; and as to the latter, the most probable reason is that it never had any quantity of funds worth embezzling.1959 October 23, Michael Robbins, “The Isle of Wight (Newport Junction) Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 721:
- Synonyms
- defalcate, have one's hand in the till, misappropriate, peculate, skim
- Derived terms
- embezzlement, embezzler, unembezzled