treatment
Americannoun
-
treatments
plural
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an act or manner of treating.
- Synonyms:
- approach, conduct, management, handling
-
action or behavior toward a person, animal, etc.
-
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.
See Examples For:
In August, Khan was briefly transferred from jail to a state-run hospital for medical examination and treatment following complaints about his deteriorating health.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
A third person self-transported to a local hospital for treatment of a severe laceration.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2026
Eli Lilly’s experimental cancer treatment, olomorasib, receives orphan drug designation from the Food and Drug Administration.
From Barron's ● Oct. 5, 2026
Since then, it has conducted work to monitor, research and develop treatment for other serious infectious diseases, including cholera, anthrax and brucellosis.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
Angry about the unfair treatment he and his fellow submariners faced upon their return to port, Vasili Arkhipov spoke little of his mission to Cuba in subsequent years.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
They are crucial for directing the body's immune defences and are targets for research into treatments of several inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
From Barron's ● Oct. 5, 2026
At least nine companies sell pricey pesticide treatments or natural oil sprays for the backyard that are supposed to repel deer, or ticks, sparking an angry debate over whether they also endanger pets and pollinators.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026
The finding could eventually help scientists develop treatments that more precisely target the cells driving this aggressive blood cancer.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 2, 2026
She also recommended treatments utilizing exosomes, vesicles derived from stem cells, which purport to combat anxiety among other menopause symptoms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
“As CFers, so much is taken away from us. We live every single day according to treatments, pills.”
From "Five Feet Apart" by Rachael Lippincott
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.
