malfeasant

[ mal-fee-zuhnt ]

noun

1. a person who engages in an act that is illegal, legally unjustified, or harmful, especially a public official or person in a position of public trust:

   We will not restore the people’s confidence with bland assurances that the malfeasants are mere outliers who will be punished.

adjective

1. (especially of a public official or person in a position of public trust) engaging in an act that is illegal, legally unjustified, or harmful:

   This government zealously pursues malfeasant civil servants and prosecutes them.

Word History and Origins

Origin of malfeasant¹

First recorded in 1830–40; malfeas(ance) ( def ) + -ant ( def )

Example Sentences

Telling the government about corporate malfeasance can still make you rich, and some people think that’s a problem.

From Fortune

People seeking to delegitimize election results are weaving real-world events, such as isolated confrontations with poll workers or broken voting machines, into claims of broader malfeasance by nefarious partisans on one side or the other.

From Popular-Science

So, what really happens here is a sort of organizational malfeasance rather than individual-level malfeasance.

From Voice of San Diego

If we’re going to believe he has examined these situations carefully for malfeasance, he might want to have the basic facts down.

From Washington Post

NSO has no permanent internal abuse team, unlike almost any other billion-dollar tech firm, and most of its investigations are spun up only when an outside source such as Amnesty International or Citizen Lab claims there has been malfeasance.

From MIT Technology Review