maladministration

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

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌmælədˌmɪnɪˈstɹeɪʃn̩/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌmælədˌmɪnəˈstɹeɪʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən
• Hyphenation: mal‧ad‧min‧is‧trat‧ion

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.

   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 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, 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:

     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 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:

     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.

• maleadministration, male-administration (obsolete, 17th–18th c.)

• maladminister (probably modelled after maladministration)
• maladministrator (modelled after maladministration)

• maladministration on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “maladministration, n.”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.