defalcate

1530s, in sense “to lop off”, from Medieval Latin dēfalcātus, perfect passive participle of dēfalcō (“cut or lop off”),[1] from Latin dē (“off”) + falx (“sickle, scythe, pruning hook”),[2] from which also English falcate (“sickle-shaped”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): [ˈdɛfəɫkeɪt]

• Audio (Southern England)

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defalcate (third-person singular simple present defalcates, present participle defalcating, simple past and past participle defalcated)

1. (intransitive) To misappropriate funds; to embezzle.
2. (transitive, obsolete)
   1. To cut off (a part of something).
   2. To deduct or take away (a part of income, money, rents, etc.).
      • 1769, [Edmund Burke], Observations on a Late State of the Nation, London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC, page 42:

        One would have thought the natural method in a plan of reformation vvould be, to take the preſent exiſting eſtimates as they ſtand; and then to ſhevv vvhat may be practicably and ſafely defalcated from them.

• defalcation

• falcate

• lop

defalcate

1. inflection of defalcare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative