Other forms: treated, treating, treats
To treat someone is to behave towards them in a certain way: kindly, badly, like a guest, like a fool. Your boss treats everybody the same; the neighbour treats his car better than his garden.
The medical sense is just as common: doctors treat patients, and they treat somebody FOR an illness WITH a drug. Factories treat things as well — treated wood does not rot, treated water is safe to drink. Then there is the generous sense: you treat somebody TO lunch, and if you say 'my treat', you are paying. As a noun, a treat is a small pleasure you do not get every day, which is why children get treats and so do dogs. Watch the little words, because they carry the meaning: treat someone AS an equal, treat them FOR a cough, treat them TO dinner.
1verbtreatTo behave towards a person or thing in a certain way.~31%
“He treats his students like colleagues.”
2verbgiveTo give medical care to a person or an illness.~47%
“The doctor treated her for a bad chest infection.”
3verbputTo put a chemical or a process on something to protect it or change it.~2%
“The fence posts are treated, so they last twenty years.”
4verbpayTo pay for something enjoyable for somebody else.~2%
“Let me treat you — you bought the tickets.”
5nounenjoyableSomething enjoyable that you do not get every day.~16%
“Breakfast out on a Sunday was a treat, not a habit.”
6verbdealTo deal with a subject in writing or in speech.~2%
“The last chapter treats the war years in detail.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 12 sentences found in the wild and placed 12 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Treat came through French from Latin tracto, to pull, to manage, which grew from traho, to draw, to pull. Handling is the thread that runs through every modern sense: to treat something is to take hold of it and manage it, whether it is a patient, a fence post or a subject in a book. Middle English had it as treten, borrowed from Anglo-Norman treter.
Latin
tracto — to pull", "to manage
Old French
tretier
Anglo-Norman
treter
Middle English
treten
English, today
treat
Built from
From Middle English treten, from Anglo-Norman treter, Old French tretier, traiter, from Latin tracto (“to pull", "to manage”), from the past participle stem of traho (“to draw", "to pull”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA