To embezzle or misappropriate money or property that you're trusted to handle.
From embezzle, with the 'em-' prefix dropped in informal speech. Embezzle comes from Old French 'bezel' meaning to reduce or diminish. The word evolved in medieval commerce to specifically mean stealing from an employer.
The word 'bezzle' is part of a hidden economic reality that economist John Kenneth Galbraith called 'the bezzle'—the amount of embezzled money floating invisibly in the economy before it's discovered. It's like a secret financial layer that makes GDP calculations unreliable!
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.