Misfeasor

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who commits an error while carrying out a legal act, resulting in a breach of duty or harm to others
2. An individual who performs an authorized action but does so incorrectly, causing negative consequences or legal liability
3. A person engaging in a lawful activity but executing it improperly, leading to damage or a violation of responsibilities

Etymology: Lawyers sort careless or wrongful conduct into three categories: nonfeasance, failing to do something one was obliged to do; malfeasance, doing something that is itself unlawful; and misfeasance, carrying out a lawful act in a faulty way. A misfeasor is the person who commits that third kind of error. The term comes from Anglo-French legal usage. "Mesfaire" meant "to do wrong," combining "mes-," a prefix that descends from Latin "minus" ("less," with the sense of "amiss"), and "faire," from Latin "facere," "to do." English legal writers borrowed the family of terms, and "-or" marks the doer of the action, a pattern common in legal Latin and French.