THE FIRST WORD

the bezzle
What we are witnessing is the unwinding of what the economist J.K. Galbraith called "the bezzle," the stock of undiscovered embezzled wealth that accumulates during the boom in a country's business and banks.

Although this noun sense of "bezzle" is most likely a back-formation from "embezzle," the verb "bezzle" in English has meant "to spoil, plunder, or squander" since the 1400s. Bezzle as a noun can also mean "a hard drinker."