Peculate from Latin pecūlātus (embezzlement), from pecūlium (private property), from pecū (cattle), PIE *péḱu- (livestock = wealth). The semantic chain: cattle → private property → theft of public property. Preserves in one verb the arc from pastoral economy to Roman criminal law. Literally: to steal the cattle.
To embezzle or misappropriate public funds or property entrusted to one's care.
From Latin 'pecūlātus' (embezzlement of public funds), from 'pecūlārī' (to make public property one's own, to embezzle), from 'pecūlium' (private property, especially the small portion of the herd set aside as one's own), a diminutive or derivative of 'pecū' / 'pecus' (cattle, livestock), from PIE *péḱu- (livestock, moveable wealth). The word preserves an ancient economic truth: in pre-monetary Indo-European society, wealth was measured in cattle, and the earliest form of embezzlement was literally stealing cattle from the common herd. The PIE root *péḱu- produced Sanskrit 'páśu' (cattle, animal), Gothic 'faihu' (property, money), Old English
Roman crīmen pecūlātūs (crime of peculation) was tried before the quaestio de peculatu. It literally meant 'stealing the cattle' — because in early Rome, your wealth was your herd, and the portion you could call your own (pecūlium) was originally the few animals a father granted his son or a master his slave. The metaphor stuck long after Rome stopped counting wealth in livestock.