Mulct

Word of the Day for Saturday February 26, 2005

mulct \MULKT\, noun:
A fine or penalty.
transitive verb:
1. To punish for an offense or misdemeanor by imposing a fine or demanding a forfeiture.
2. To obtain by fraud or deception.
3. To defraud; to swindle.

Officials repaid such loans by mulcting the public in a variety of legal and extra-legal ways.
--William H. McNeill, A World History

The fact that major corporations don't have to pay their own way, and instead are able to enlist legislators to mulct common citizens -- and businesses with more modest Washington connections -- deforms the entire political system.
--Doug Bandow, "The Bipartisan Scandal of U.S. Corporate Welfare"

State lawmakers and state courts . . . [have] ditched old common law rules so as to charge deep-pocket defendants with harms that were once considered other people's fault, thus making it thinkable to mulct automakers for the costs of drunk drivers' crashes
--Walter Olson, "Firing Squad," Reason, May 1999


Mulct comes from Latin multa, "a fine."

n : money extracted as a penalty [syn: fine, amercement] v 1: deprive of by deceit; "He swindled me out of my inheritance"; "She defrauded the customers who trusted her"; "the cashier gypped me when he gave me too little change" [syn: victimize, swindle, rook, goldbrick, nobble, diddle, bunco, defraud, scam, gyp, con] 2: impose a fine on; "he was fined for littering"
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Fine/Punish:




To defraud/swindle:

(what is charged over what is paid....defraud by unfair markup)