What does "maladministration" mean?

Faulty, improper, or inefficient administration or management, especially by a government body; (countable) an instance of this.

What is a synonym for "maladministration"?

Common synonyms include: abuse, conversion, defalcation, desecration, diversion, embezzlement.

Pronounced //ˌmælədˌmɪnɪˈstɹeɪʃn̩//.

//ˌmælədˌmɪnɪˈstɹeɪʃn̩// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Faulty, improper, or inefficient administration or management, especially by a government body; (countable) an instance of this. uncountable
"Near-synonyms: mismanagement, misgovernance"
2
An act of incorrectly administering a religious rite; also, a religious group that permits such a practice. countable, obsolete
"[…] 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."

"Because of his maladministration, his company was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy."

PIE word *h₂éd From mal- (prefix meaning ‘bad; badly’) + administration.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.