mismanage

verb

mis·​man·​age ˌmis-ˈma-nij 

mismanaged; mismanaging

transitive verb

: to manage (something) wrongly or poorly

mismanage a business

… started thinking that maybe employees are sometimes mismanaged because they let themselves be mismanaged. They don't fight back.

—A. J. Anderson

… even those professional Pollyannas who publicly find reason to praise the current municipal administration shake their heads in private and wonder how long we can go on deliberately mismanaging our affairs.

—Brendan Gill

mismanagement

ˌmis-ˈma-nij-mənt 

noun

plural mismanagements

financial mismanagement of the company

Synonyms

• maladminister
• misconduct
• misgovern
• mishandle
• misrule

Examples of mismanage in a Sentence

the business was mismanaged so seriously that it eventually had to declare bankruptcy

Recent Examples on the Web

The inspector general found that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks mismanaged protocols during his 2024 hospitalization for prostate cancer treatment. —Matt Galka, Baltimore Sun, 17 Jan. 2025

The federal government is complex, though, and lacking knowledge about how agencies work could lead to unintentional consequences if agencies are mismanaged. —Zac Anderson, USA TODAY, 16 Jan. 2025

Newsom has been facing criticism from right-wing figures like Musk and Trump and angry residents, who have accused the state of mismanaging resources and being slow to contain the fires. —John Mac Ghlionn, Newsweek, 13 Jan. 2025

The site refutes claims from Fox News that California cut its firefighting budget and shoots down allegations in social media posts about the state mismanaging forest lands. —Julia Wick, Los Angeles Times, 12 Jan. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1651, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

mismanage

verb

mis·​man·​age

(ˈ)mis-ˈman-ij

: to manage badly or improperly

mismanagement

-mənt

noun