Mismanagement

How to spell mismanagement

13 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce mismanagement

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mismanagement mean?

1. nounThe act of handling something, such as money, a business, or a situation, in a careless, incompetent, or dishonest way.

Mismanagement in a sentence

• The company collapsed after years of financial mismanagement.

• Auditors blamed the missing funds on sheer mismanagement rather than fraud.

Where does mismanagement come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The core of this word is the verb 'manage', which English took up in the 1500s from the Italian maneggiare, meaning 'to handle', especially to handle and train a horse. That Italian verb traces back to the Latin manus, meaning 'hand', so the original idea was quite literally to take something in hand. Over time 'manage' broadened from horsemanship to the handling of money, businesses, and people. The prefix 'mis-' is a native English and Germanic element meaning 'wrongly' or 'badly', while the ending '-ment', borrowed through French from Latin, turns a verb into a noun naming the result or process. Put together in the 1600s, mismanagement names the act of handling something badly, and the spelling is straightforward once you see the three honest pieces: mis, manage, ment, with the silent 'e' of 'manage' kept before the suffix.

How the word is built

• mis- (wrongly, badly)
• manage (to handle or control)
• -ment (noun-forming suffix)