‘Malfeasance’

In his speech marking the end of the Afghanistan war , Joe Biden complained that the former Afghan president had fled amid “corruption and malfeasance”, which might have sounded rather an orotund accusation. From the French faire (to do), “misfeasance” entered English in the early 17th century via a legal treatise. “Misfeasance” was swiftly joined by the alternative “malfeasance”, exchanging the Greek prefix mis- for the French mal- , for bad or evil. They literally both mean wrongdoing, but have usually been reserved specifically for the unlawful exercise of authority, or other misdeeds in public office. More generally malfeasance can mean any kind of wrongdoing. Optimistically, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “Nature turns all malfaisance [sic] to good.” But he didn’t give a timeframe.