Treatable means able to be helped by medicine. A treatable condition, entirely treatable, treatable if caught early.
It is not the same as curable: a treatable condition can be managed and need not go away, and the distinction matters enormously to people receiving a diagnosis. Treatable if caught early is the standard phrase in screening campaigns. Note untreatable; and that treat comes from a Latin verb meaning to handle or drag, the same root as tractor.
1adjectivetreatableAble to be helped by medicine.
“The good news is that the infection is treatable with a course of tablets.”
treatable is a quality of being helpable.
Treat plus -able, from Latin tractare, to handle, from trahere, to draw. Tractor, treaty and abstract come from the same drawing.
Anglo-Norman
tretable
Old French
traitable
Middle English
tretable
English, today
treatable
Built from
From Middle English tretable, from treten (“treat”) and Old French traitable, Anglo-Norman tretable; equivalent to treat + able.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA