peculation
    n 1: the fraudulent appropriation of funds or property entrusted
         to your care but actually owned by someone else [syn:
         embezzlement, peculation, defalcation,
         misapplication, misappropriation]

Peculation \Pec`u*la"tion\, n.
   The act or practice of peculating, or of defrauding the
   public by appropriating to one's own use the money or goods
   intrusted to one's care for management or disbursement;
   embezzlement.
   [1913 Webster]

         Every British subject . . . active in the discovery of
         peculations has been ruined.             --Burke.
   [1913 Webster]

PECULATION, civil law. The unlawful appropriation by a depositary of public 
funds, of the property of the government entrusted to his care, to his own 
use or that of others. Domat, Suppl. au Droit Public, liv. 3, tit. 5.