maldevelopment

Meaning

Noun

• The state of an organism or an organisation that did not develop in the "normal" way (used in medicine, e.g. "brain maldevelopment of a fetus").
• Under the philosophy of sustainable development, poor economic, human or social development.

Origin

• French maldéveloppement, introduced as a human and social development term in France in the 1990s, to replace the words malformation or développement anormal. The word can be broken down as mal- + development.