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maladministration

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 10 December 2024

Etymology

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PIE word
*h₂éd

From mal- (prefix meaning ‘bad; badly’) +‎ administration.[1][2]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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maladministration (countable and uncountable, plural maladministrations)

  1. (chiefly government, uncountable) Faulty, improper, or inefficient administration or management, especially by a government body; (countable) an instance of this. [from 17th c.]
    Synonym: misadministration
    Near-synonyms: mismanagement, misgovernance
    To combat maladministration and improve government efficiency, the ombudsman was established to function as an independent watchdog.
    • 1667 June 26 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “June 16th, 1667 (Lord’s Day)”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume VI, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1895, →OCLC, pages 372–373:
      At noon home to dinner, and much good discourse with him [Roger Pepys], he being mighty sensible of our misery and mal-administration. Talking of these straits we are in, he tells me that my Lord Arlington [Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington] did the last week take up £12,000 in gold, which is very likely, for all was taken up that could be.
    • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, “He Writes against the Minister, by whose Instigation He is Arrested, and Moves Himself by Habeas Corpus into the Fleet”, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume IV, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC, page 149:
      Mean vvhile, he reſumed his taſk; and having finiſhed a moſt ſevere remonſtrance against Sir Steady, not only vvith regard to his private ingratitude, but also to his male-adminiſtration of public affairs, he ſent it to the author of a vveekly paper, […]
    • 1768, William Blackstone, “Of Courts of a Special Jurisdiction”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book III (Of Private Wrongs), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 73:
      [A] vvrit of error lies from hence [the court of justice-seat] to the court of king's bench, to rectify and redreſs any mal-adminiſtrations of juſtice; […]
    • 1893 November 3, Francis S[tephens] Spence, witness, Royal Commission on the Liquor Traffic: Minutes of Evidence […] (No. 21–1894), volume IV, part II, […] S. E. Dawson, […], published 1895, →OCLC, page 1035:
      [W]hat I wanted to get at was this fact, that the liquor traffic was, through the maladministration of the Government, opened up in a community that expected to be kept free from it. The safeguards of a prohibitory law were broken down, and the resulting debauchery took place.
    • 2003, Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, pages 315–316:
      Annual auditing was a farce, and since the Chambre de Justice had fallen into disuse after 1716, judicial checks on financial maladministration were non-existent.
  2. (Christianity, countable, obsolete) An act of incorrectly administering a religious rite; also, a religious group that permits such a practice.
    • 1656, Richard Vines, “What Must be Done where Discipline Cannot be Executed for Want of Administrators”, in A Treatise of the Right Institution, Administration, and Receiving of the Sacrament of the Lords-Supper. […], London: […] A. M. for Thomas Underhill […], published 1657, →OCLC, page 259:
      […] I vvould have the Sacraments on their vvheels, and yet ſo that their mal-adminiſtration bring not epidemick judgements upon us, as the receiving unvvorthily did on the Church of Corinth.

Alternative forms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “maladministration, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023.
  2. ^ “maladministration, n.”, in Collins English Dictionary.

Further reading

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