Definition
To misdemean is to conduct oneself improperly or to abuse a duty, office, or trust. In its older legal usage, the verb describes the act of misbehaving in a legally cognizable sense — that is, behaving in a manner that constitutes or gives rise to a misdemeanor. The term is now largely archaic as an independent legal verb. It survives primarily in historical legal texts and pleadings, where it appears reflexively ("did misdemean himself") as the verbal root from which MISDEMEANOR descends.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To cause oneself to behave badly; to misbehave. Used reflexively.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "To behave ill; — with a reflexive pronoun; as, to misdemean one's self."
The gap between common and legal usage here is narrow but worth noting. In ordinary English, "misdemean" simply means to misbehave in any sense. In legal contexts, the term carried a more specific charge: conduct that rises to the level of a recognized legal wrong, an abuse of office or duty, or an act subject to criminal sanction. The reflexive construction — "did misdemean himself" — was a formal pleading formula, not mere description of bad behavior.
Common Confusion
MISDEMEAN vs. MISDEMEANOR: Researchers sometimes treat "misdemean" as simply a contracted or informal version of "misdemeanor." They are related but distinct: misdemean is the verb form, historically describing the act of conducting oneself wrongfully; misdemeanor is the noun form describing the offense that results. In historical indictments and informations, both forms appear, and conflating them can produce misreadings of pleading language. The verb form largely disappeared from active legal use by the nineteenth century as the noun came to dominate.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in early English legal records, colonial American materials, or historical criminal pleadings will encounter "misdemean" as a live verb, typically in the reflexive construction. The phrase "did misdemean himself" (or "herself") was a standard formula in criminal informations and indictments, functioning as an allegation of wrongful conduct without necessarily specifying the precise nature of the offense. Recognizing this construction is essential for accurately reading historical charging documents — it signals a criminal allegation, not merely a behavioral observation.
The term also appears in older equity and administrative contexts, where an officeholder might be said to have "misdemean'd himself in his office," meaning he abused or improperly exercised his official duties. This usage is distinct from the criminal pleading context and can appear in proceedings that are disciplinary rather than penal in character.
Because "misdemean" as a verb is essentially dead in modern legal drafting, it will not appear in contemporary statutory or case law. Corpus searches for this term should be directed at historical sources: early English common law materials, colonial and early American court records, and nineteenth-century treatises that quote or summarize earlier pleading forms.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary captures the core of the historical legal meaning concisely: "In old English law. To use improperly; to abuse." The entry frames the term as already archaic at the time of Burrill's writing, assigning it to "old English law" rather than to current practice. The fragment Burrill preserves — "If he" — suggests the entry continued with an illustrative quotation from a historical source, though the full passage is not available here. This pattern of citing illustrative authority was typical of Burrill's method and reinforces that the verb was being documented as a historical form rather than prescribed as active usage.
No other shelf sources include a dedicated entry for "misdemean" as a verb, which itself confirms its early retirement from active legal vocabulary. The common dictionaries (Webster's 1913, Wiktionary) preserve the reflexive construction but strip it of its specifically legal content, treating it as a general behavioral verb. Researchers relying on general dictionaries alone would miss the pleading formula significance entirely.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: MISDEMEANOR