as in to usurp
Related Words
Relevance
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for peculate
Verb
-
That could impact the situation of Clarke, who outplayed Doughty and usurped his former position on the power play but logged fewer minutes at right defense just the same.—
Andrew Knoll,
Daily News,
2 May 2026 -
Hegseth and Feinberg, Phelan said, had imposed rigid control over submarine and shipbuilding decisions, effectively usurping the Navy’s authority, these people said.—
Dan Lamothe,
Washington Post,
2 May 2026
Verb
-
Fred, their oldest surviving child, was suspended from Princeton for cheating, then caught embezzling from his Seattle employer to feed, Church suspected, a gambling habit.—
Sebastian Smee,
New Yorker,
4 May 2026
-
Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, said that some of the sentiment comes from real grievances about corruption in Iran, such as the banker who embezzled millions before fleeing to Canada.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
1 May 2026
Verb
-
More recently, Republican gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco has drawn scrutiny for using his position as Riverside County sheriff to seize some 650,000 ballots in the county to determine whether they were fraudulently counted.—
Clara Harter,
Los Angeles Times,
7 May 2026
-
Investigators recovered a 9 mm SIG Sauer handgun, according to the filing, and seized electronic devices as part of the investigation.—
Sarah Rumpf-Whitten,
FOXNews.com,
7 May 2026
Verb
-
The Supreme Court could now preempt any FDA decision.—
Sarah Owermohle,
CNN Money,
8 May 2026
-
In February 2025, a state appeals court upheld the jury’s verdict, ruling that Missouri’s laws requiring companies to warn of dangers are not preempted by federal law.—
Sarah J. Morath,
The Conversation,
30 Apr. 2026
Verb
-
At first glance, the pairing might seem like an unconventional one, even though both artists are well known for appropriating others’ images.—
Maximilíano Durón,
ARTnews.com,
8 May 2026
-
The funds would be pulled from money that Congress appropriated for health programs tackling malaria, tuberculosis, maternal and child health, nutrition, global health security, HIV/AIDS and more, two federal health policy experts told CNN.—
Lauren Kent,
CNN Money,
7 May 2026
Verb
-
Maduko was the head of the community college system when he was picked last year to serve as the interim chancellor of CSCU after newspaper reports and two state audits revealed that Chancellor Terrence Cheng had misused his state credit card and other funds.—
Kevin Rennie,
Hartford Courant,
2 May 2026
-
The same tools used to design beneficial organisms could potentially be misused.—
André O. Hudson,
The Conversation,
30 Apr. 2026
Verb
-
But all of those ideas for spending or tax rebates, again, all of those are congressional authority that the president is arrogating to himself—something else that would have startled the founders of the country all those 250 years ago.—
David Frum,
The Atlantic,
31 Dec. 2025
-
Like Mao and Deng before him, Xi Jinping has arrogated to himself great power.—
JOSEPH TORIGIAN,
Foreign Affairs,
23 June 2025
Verb
-
The government, which insists Lai is Chinese, is seeking to confiscate his assets on national security grounds.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
9 May 2026
-
Detectives confiscated over $10,000 cash, along with narcotics and a firearm, after serving a search warrant Thursday in Westland, Michigan.—
Paula Wethington,
CBS News,
8 May 2026
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Cite this Entry
“Peculate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/peculate. Accessed 11 May. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
