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 of mismanage

• misconduct
• damage
• violate
• mishandle
• misgovern
• abuse

Examples of mismanage in a Sentence

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

Recent Examples on the Web

Others may mismanage their finances, spending investment funds haphazardly without building reserves or planning for future funding rounds, also resulting in failure. — Dmitrii Khasanov, Forbes.com, 26 June 2026

An on-and-off again rivalry during the primary The two men shared a similar message during the primary, slamming Democrats for mismanaging the state and calling for tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks. — Ben Paviour, Sacbee.com, 26 June 2026

The mismanaged studios of the mid-1960s had no money to spend and no executives left to spend it. — Peter Bart, Deadline, 25 June 2026

Target has been criticized for mismanaging inventory, under-investing in stores and falling behind on the trendy, eye-catching merchandise the retailer built its name on. — Gabrielle Fonrouge, CNBC, 22 June 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1651, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for mismanage

• manage
• tannage

Kids Definition

mismanage

verb

mis·​man·​age

(ˈ)mis-ˈman-ij

: to manage badly or improperly

mismanagement

-mənt

noun