ill-begotten
adjective
ill-be·got·ten
ˈil-bi-ˈgä-tᵊn 
-bē-
1
: having an illicit or improper origin : ill-gotten
… if they were stolen for fun and not profit the thieves are going to be pretty disappointed with their ill-begotten booty.—
Alex Cranz
Alex Cranz2
: badly planned : ill-conceived
… the partnership collapsed after an ill-begotten attempt to secure the bill's passage …—Michele Wucker
Michele WuckerExamples of ill-begotten in a Sentence
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Small farmers and peasants the world over endured dramatic transformations in the twentieth century and were subject to grand and ill-begotten experiments by capitalist and communist states alike.
—Nikil Saval, New Yorker, 7 Apr. 2025
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Nikil Saval, New Yorker, 7 Apr. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Ill-begotten.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ill-begotten. Accessed 23 Apr. 2025.
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