What does bezzle mean?
Bezzle is a largely archaic English verb meaning to drink heavily or riotously — to consume alcohol to excess, often with a suggestion of wasting money or health in the process. It appears in older literature and dialect writing, where a character might "bezzle" away his wages in taverns. The word enjoys a surprising afterlife in economics: in his history of the 1929 crash, J.K. Galbraith coined the noun "bezzle" to describe the stock of undiscovered embezzlement present in an economy at any time. In his account, the bezzle grows during booms, when optimism makes detection unlikely, and shrinks during busts, when the frauds are exposed. This gives the word two lives: an antique term for drunken excess and a sharp modern metaphor connecting drinking, squandering, and hidden theft — fitting, since it is closely related in form and history to "embezzle."
To drink heavily; to indulge in excessive drinking, sometimes with the implication of squandering resources through drink.
"He would bezzle all night and repent all morning."
The total amount of undiscovered embezzlement existing in an economy at a given time; a coinage of economist John Kenneth Galbraith.
"Every bull market enlarges the bezzle; every bear market reveals it."
Used only in this figurative, Galbraithian economic sense; not a standard dictionary headword in most general dictionaries.
Rarely used in the plural; when it appears at all it is in discussions of Galbraith's concept across multiple economies or periods.
"Different eras hide their bezzles in different instruments — railway shares then, mortgage bonds later."
Economist J.K. Galbraith gave us the "bezzle": at any moment, every booming economy contains a fixed mass of undetected theft that shrinks in bad times when the frauds surface.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bezzle
The verb "bezzle" arose in English by at least the sixteenth century as an intensive form built on the same root as "embezzle," which itself derives from the Old French "embesiller" ("to destroy, lay waste"), from "besiller" ("to ruin"), of Germanic origin. Its original force was destructive wastage, later narrowed chiefly to wastage through drink. Galbraith's twentieth-century noun exploits that kinship: he took the shorter form to name the aggregate of concealed "embezzlement" in an economy.
How bezzle is actually used
The verbal sense is archaic or dialectal and chiefly historical or literary today; using it in modern prose signals deliberate quaintness. The nominal sense is a specialist but well-known coinage in financial writing, always used figuratively and almost always with reference to Galbraith.
Easily confused with bezzle
"Embezzle" means to steal money entrusted to one's care, while the older verb "bezzle" means to drink heavily — though Galbraith's economic noun "bezzle" playfully connects them as the hidden mass of uncaught embezzlement.