Embezzle
//ɪmˈbɛz.əl// verb
verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Verb
- 1 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."
- 2 appropriate (as property entrusted to one's care) fraudulently to one's own use wordnet
Example
More examples"With his mother out of the way, Duke was able to proceed with his plan to embezzle the money from the company."
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.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.