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Defalcation
Definitions
- 1 The act of cancelling part of a claim by deducting a smaller claim which the claimant owes to the defendant. countable, uncountable
- 2 the fraudulent appropriation of funds or property entrusted to your care but actually owned by someone else wordnet
- 3 Embezzlement. countable, uncountable
"Granting that Mr. Ireland had gone into his office at ten minutes to ten o'clock at night for the purpose of extracting £5000 worth of notes and gold from the bank safe, whilst giving the theft the appearance of a night burglary; […] why should he, at nine o'clock the following morning, fall in a dead faint and get cerebral congestion at sight of a defalcation he knew had occurred?"
- 4 the sum of money that is misappropriated wordnet
Etymology
Late 15th century, from Medieval Latin dēfalcātiōnem, accusative singular of dēfalcātiō (literally “cutting off, lopping off with a sickle”), nominalization of dēfalcō, from Latin dē (“off”) + falx (“sickle, scythe, pruning hook”), from which also English falcate (“sickle-shaped”). By surface analysis, defalcate + -ion (“the act of”).
See also for "defalcation"
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