Malpractice Meaning
/mæˈlpræktəs/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounThe improper treatment of a patient by a physician that results in injury or loss.
nounImproper or unethical conduct by a professional or official person.
Sentence Examples
Malpractice insurance is a contributing factor to the high cost of medical care.
You should be sued for malpractice.
The doctor who treated Tom should be sued for malpractice.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The patient sued the surgeon for ____ after he operated on the wrong leg on purpose.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The doctor was sued for ____ after a series of mistakes during a surgery led to serious complications.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)mel-? Proto-Italic *malos Latin malus Latin maleder. Old French mal- English mal- English practice English malpractice From mal- + practice.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"When such a breakdown occurs there must be a full examination of the corruption that has been committed, and the leaders involved in malpractices must be encouraged to give a full account of what took place."
— 2007, Stephen Prosser, To Be a Servant-Leader:
"A national-security budget where we spend 20 times as much money on the military and intelligence agencies as we do on diplomacy, democracy promotion, and smart power, is foreign-policy malpractice in the modern world."
— 2019 October 7, Chris Murphy, “How to Make a Progressive Foreign Policy Actually Work”, in The Atlantic:
"“It was malpractice on the side of Harvard’s lawyers not to pick up the phone and call the members of the antisemitism task force who they had been talking to for weeks,” said May Mailman, the White House senior policy strategist."
— 2025 April 19, Michael S. Schmidt, Michael C. Bender, quoting May Mailman, “Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation With Harvard”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The patient sued the surgeon for ____ after he operated on the wrong leg on purpose.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The doctor was sued for ____ after a series of mistakes during a surgery led to serious complications.