mistreat
Americanverb (used with object)
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mistreats,
present (3rd person singular)
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mistreated,
past participle, past
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mistreating
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
mistreatsimple
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mistreatssimple
-
have mistreatedperfect
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has mistreatedperfect
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am mistreatingprogressive
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are mistreatingprogressive
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is mistreatingprogressive
-
have been mistreatingperfect progressive
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has been mistreatingperfect progressive
Past
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mistreatedsimple
-
had mistreatedperfect
-
was mistreatingprogressive
-
were mistreatingprogressive
-
had been mistreatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mistreat
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English mistreten; see mis- 1, treat
Explanation
If you mistreat someone, you harm them in some way. If you don't feed your cat for three days and refuse to clean its litter box, you are definitely mistreating it. People mistreat each other in all sorts of ways, from the emotional (by belittling, ignoring, or mocking them) to the physical (by hitting or otherwise physically harming them). If you see a neighbor mistreat his dog, you might call the police. If a teacher were to mistreat her students, she could lose her job. This verb adds the "bad or wrong" prefix mis- to treat, from its Latin root tractare, "manage or handle."
Vocabulary lists containing mistreat
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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:
Zambian union leaders said Chinese managers pay poorly and mistreat workers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2025
One attendee had even brought her sign from 2017, a verse from Leviticus in English and in Hebrew: “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.”
From Slate ● Mar. 27, 2025
Thompson’s death has inspired a torrent of fury about the way his insurance company and others treat — or mistreat — people in their moments of greatest need.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 6, 2024
There are a lot of people who mistreat dogs and take dogs for granted.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2024
“Well, what kind of law is it, Ma, that lets a man mistreat his dog?”
From "Shiloh" by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
The stunt was meant to support critics of SeaWorld who assert that the park mistreats its orcas.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2023
After a decade-long battle, a former animal trainer has succeeded in his mission of getting a beloved walrus out of Canada's most popular aquatic zoo, which has faced allegations that it mistreats its animals.
From BBC ● May 17, 2023
In the second passage, an excerpt from Petronius’s Satyricon, the formerly enslaved Trimalchio mistreats his own enslaved people during a lavish dinner party.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
It's not perfect, but it is duty-bound to best uphold the ideals of society even if it mistreats people.
From Salon ● Nov. 18, 2022
If a mentor mistreats his tributes, he'll be held accountable by the viewers, by the people back in District 12.
From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
"He was very rude, he disrespected me and mistreated me on the phone," Michelle Bolsonaro, 44, told her 8.2 million Instagram followers about her stepson Flavio Bolsonaro, 45.
From Barron's ● Jul. 3, 2026
They have called adult protective services repeatedly, claiming that their mom is being mistreated, court documents show, and have tried to monitor her own whereabouts, Ruth said.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026
In an interview in 1980, Donald Trump called the entire hostage episode a horror and said it was ridiculous that the U.S. allowed its people to be mistreated for so long.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 10, 2026
Throughout, she’ll allude to stories of mistreated animals and the Griffith Park fire of 1933, heightening the sense that we are in the presence of unnatural occurrences.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 21, 2026
She started interviewing black residents who had been mistreated on the city buses and writing down their stories.
From "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice" by Phillip Hoose
The rest of the family has been in an increasingly tense dispute with Hochman over the case, accusing the district attorney of mistreating them in private meetings.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 17, 2025
But the zoo's director has urged people to behave when they come to see Moo Deng, after videos emerged showing visitors mistreating the animal.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2024
Bowden-Lewis also was accused of a pattern of mistreating employees, refusing to acknowledge the commission’s authority, disregarding its directives and improperly ordering a subordinate to search the emails of employees and Palmer without their knowledge.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 4, 2024
The patients she was accused of mistreating ranged in age from 43 to 104.
From New York Times ● May 2, 2024
Nazi propaganda had led the German people to believe that the Poles were mistreating ethnic Germans living in Poland.
From "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
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.
