How to Use misspend in a Sentence

misspend

verb
  • Several government officials have been accused of misspending public money.
  • If the money is lost or misspent, the ratepayer is on the hook for that.
    — Julie Gallant, Ramona Sentinel, 21 Mar. 2018
  • There are also mounting concerns that the new wealth has been misspent.
    — Piotr Zalewski, Foreign Affairs, 9 Feb. 2014
  • In other words, the money was misplaced rather than misspent.
    — Sheelah Kolhatkar, The New Yorker, 8 Oct. 2023
  • Whiting is accused of misspending to bolster his and his wife's campaigns.
    — The Arizona Republic, 31 Dec. 2024
  • Whiting is accused of misspending to bolster his and his wife's campaigns.
    — Robert Anglen, The Arizona Republic, 12 Aug. 2024
  • Oil-rich Libya, which has a government surplus, has years of missing and misspent funds.
    — Taylor Luck, The Christian Science Monitor, 14 Sep. 2023
  • The team is making enormous amounts of money - revenue that has been mostly misspent in recent years.
    — Ann Killion, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 Feb. 2018
  • Utah leaders misspend public funds, abandon Utah’s youth for fossil fuels.
    — Bryan Schott, The Salt Lake Tribune, 3 Sep. 2021
  • Schweikert is facing allegations of misspending by his campaign and his office.
    — Ronald J. Hansen, azcentral, 3 Dec. 2019
  • Protect taxpayers from record high tax rates that get misspent in foreign wars of no strategic value to Americans.
    — The San Diego Union-Tribune Staff, San Diego Union-Tribune, 20 Feb. 2024
  • To sanction such states, Brussels instead needs to demonstrate that EU funds are being misspent.
    — Yascha Mounk, Foreign Affairs, 16 Feb. 2021
  • But the risks are that industrial policies can misspend dollars that would be better directed by the private sector.
    — Josh Boak, ajc, 18 May 2021
  • But the risks are that industrial policies can misspend dollars that would be better directed by the private sector.
    — Josh Boak, chicagotribune.com, 17 May 2021
  • What's needed is a strategy that shames Congress, which sometimes seems beyond shame, for misspending the people's money.
    — Author: Cal Thomas | Opinion, Anchorage Daily News, 6 Mar. 2018
  • Hunter, who resigned from Congress in January, is scheduled to be sentenced next week after pleading guilty to misspending his campaign funds.
    — Washington Post, 13 Mar. 2020
  • The emails detailed the dirty deeds and were sent en masse to top managers, some of whom were also accused of misspending money intended to fight Ebola in Congo.
    — Barnini Chakraborty, Fox News, 20 Mar. 2020
  • There are literally a million better ways to stop food waste than partnering with a family that has been convicted of felonies for misspending nonprofit money.
    — Emily Barnes, USA Today, 24 Sep. 2025
  • But the steady drip of investigations and misspending allegations and a shakeup at the top ranks of the NRA compelled him to alter his will.
    — Lisa Marie Pane, The Denver Post, 10 Nov. 2019
  • New revelations of misspending come as the emergency prep agency has faced scrutiny from Oregon's own auditors and upheaval in its upper ranks.
    — Allan Brettman, OregonLive.com, 30 Jan. 2018
  • The former director of the state's welfare agency pleaded guilty last year in a conspiracy to misspend the millions of dollars in the largest public corruption case in the state's history.
    — Kathryn Watson, CBS News, 7 Nov. 2023
  • Russia has spent and misspent a lot of its best manpower, a good deal of its armored force, and a fair amount of ammunition, special artillery ammunition, and a good deal of its park of conventional and precision-guided weapons.
    — Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Foreign Affairs, 17 Nov. 2022
  • Instead, Holcomb suggested lawmakers take up a loan Muncie schools need to get finances back in order after misspending bond dollars that were supposed to be used on capital projects and wait on the rest of the provisions.
    — Tony Cook, Indianapolis Star, 7 May 2018
  • Another is the surprising fact that no Florida law specifically prohibits public officials from misspending public funds on political advertising.
    — Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 23 Jan. 2026
  • Glen Gilzean, who left his Orange County post accused of misspending millions in taxpayer dollars, has been tapped as the new CEO of the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County.
    — Alexa Coultoff, The Orlando Sentinel, 7 Apr. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'misspend.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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