embezzlement Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the fraudulent appropriation of funds or property entrusted to your care but actually owned by someone else
    peculation; defalcation; misappropriation; misapplication.

WordNet


Em*bez"zle*ment noun
Definitions
  1. The fraudulent appropriation of property by a person to whom it has been intrusted; as, the embezzlement by a clerk of his employer's; embezzlement of public funds by the public officer having them in charge. Larceny denotes a taking, by fraud or stealth, from another's possession; embezzlement denotes an appropriation, by fraud or stealth, of property already in the wrongdoer's possession. In England and in most of the United States embezzlement is made indictable by statute.

Webster 1913