Link Centre Dictionary

mishandle

mis·handle

UK/mɪsˈhændəl/ US/mɪˈshændʌl/ uncommon

verb

1.

make a mess of, destroy or ruin

  • “I botched the dinner and we had to eat out”
  • “the pianist screwed up the difficult passage in the second movement”
Synonyms
2.

manage badly or incompetently

  • “The funds were mismanaged”
Synonyms

Origin

From Middle English mishandlen, equivalent to mis- + handle. Cognate with Saterland Frisian mishondelje, West Frisian mishandelje, Dutch mishandelen (“to mistreat”), German misshandeln (“to mistreat”).

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.