The Romance of Words. EMBEZZLE
Scarcely a day passes without news of some person being charged in our courts with the crime of embezzlement, which is the unlawful or fraudulent appropriation to bls own use by a servant or clerk of money or goods received by him for or on account of his master or employer. But this was not the original meaning of the word. It is derived, appropriate'? enough, from an old French word imbecile, meaning weak or feeble, since one who betrays his trust must needs b e weak. And meant: to weaken; to diminish the force or strength of. Later it came to mean, “to squander away, 'to waste, to dissipate” “Mr. Hackluct died,” wrote Thomas Fuller, in his “Worthies of England,” “leaving a fair estate to an unthrift son who embezzled it.” Thus far no meaning of a criminal sense was attached to the word. Its next meaning was “to withdraw, (o keep back.” and from this the transition to the present meaning was easy.
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Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 96, 17 January 1935, Page 7
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170The Romance of Words. EMBEZZLE Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 96, 17 January 1935, Page 7
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