From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmisappropriatemis‧ap‧pro‧pri‧ate /ˌmɪsəˈprəʊprieɪt $ -ˈproʊ-/ verb [transitive] formalSCC to dishonestly take something that someone has trusted you with, especially money or goods that belong to your employer SYN embezzle, → appropriate He claimed the finance manager had misappropriated company funds. —misappropriation /ˌmɪsəprəʊpriˈeɪʃən $ -proʊ-/ noun [uncountable] the misappropriation of public funds→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
misappropriate• During the trial, Raabe admitted that he misappropriated $80,000 of church funds.• In its narrowly defined sense the responsibility of stewardship is to demonstrate that those assets have not been misappropriated.• The administrators are alleging that the company's money was misappropriated and paid away for no benefit to the company.• Last year the council called in the police to investigate claims that council-owned building materials had been allegedly misappropriated for private use.• Kadyrov himself has been accused of misappropriating funds from the republic's budget.• This Timothy McVeigh seems to be one of this breed, even in his misappropriating of Jefferson's words.• An abortive attempt was made by Aprista newspapers to prove that the university had misappropriated public funds.• One professor had misappropriated research funds.• The Archdiocese of San Francisco filed a civil lawsuit alleging that Greenlaw misappropriated up to $ 250,000 from the church.From Longman Business Dictionarymisappropriatemis‧ap‧pro‧pri‧ate /ˌmɪsəˈprəʊprieɪt-ˈproʊ-/ verb [transitive]LAW to dishonestly take something, especially money, that you have been trusted to keep safe, and to use it for your own advantageHe was accused of misappropriating funds amounting to £4 million.Building materials had been misappropriated for private use. —misappropriation noun [uncountable]allegations of gross misappropriation of funds→ See Verb table 