treatment
Americannoun
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an act or manner of treating.
- Synonyms:
- approach, conduct, management, handling
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action or behavior toward a person, animal, etc.
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management in the application of medicines, surgery, etc.
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literary or artistic handling, especially with reference to style.
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subjection to some agent or action.
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Movies, Television. a preliminary outline of a film or teleplay laying out the key scenes, characters, and locales.
noun
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the application of medicines, surgery, psychotherapy, etc, to a patient or to a disease or symptom
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the manner of handling or dealing with a person or thing, as in a literary or artistic work
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the act, practice, or manner of treating
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films an expansion of a script into sequence form, indicating camera angles, dialogue, etc
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slang the usual manner of dealing with a particular type of person (esp in the phrase give someone the ( full ) treatment )
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of treatment
Explanation
Treatment has to do with how someone or something is managed or handled. Hopefully you get the royal treatment when you choose the deluxe pedicure treatment! You know how some people treat you with respect but others don't treat you so nicely? You can refer to how people act toward you as treatment. If a restaurant is known for rude treatment of customers, people will stop going there. Doctors also use the word treatment when they discuss a particular medical course of action — such as chemotherapy as a treatment for cancer. The root word is the Latin tractare, which originally meant "drag about," but came to mean "manage, handle, or deal with."
Vocabulary lists containing treatment
Words to Know Before You Defrost the Bird
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"Water at Work"
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Lessons 4–5
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In March that year hundreds of campaigners and residents protested outside the company's Fullerton Waste Water Treatment Works.
From BBC • Jun. 18, 2026
"Treatment outcomes were consistent and similar across both sexes."
From Science Daily • May 26, 2026
Treatment services are also run by the county and not the city.
From Los Angeles Times • May 19, 2026
Foa started her career at Temple University in Philadelphia, where she founded the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, the CTSA.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026
It was a dilemma: you wanted to be a year older, you did not want The Treatment, and you couldn’t have one without the other.
From "Wringer" by Jerry Spinelli
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
