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

LaFleur also badly mismanaged the clock in the final minute, leaving Chicago enough time to drive for a game-winning field goal. —Rob Reischel, Forbes, 5 Jan. 2025

Why do all Falcons coaches continually mismanage the clock? —Josh Kendall, The Athletic, 30 Dec. 2024

But now signs have emerged that Argentina’s bizarre and long mismanaged economy is starting to look a little more normal. —Isabel Debre, The Christian Science Monitor, 10 Dec. 2024

As donors engaged in conversation, strategists would suggest that their money was being mismanaged with inefficient or wasteful spending. —Kelsey Walsh, ABC News, 27 Nov. 2024

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