treatment
Americannoun
-
treatments
plural
-
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:
"I would not take a job if they took that long," she says, adding that she believed her treatment during the interview was a sign of how the firm tended to treat staff.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
PC Omer Farok was found to have committed gross misconduct over his treatment of the vulnerable man in central London in June 2024.
From BBC ● Nov. 5, 2026
Afterward, I’d stop by Riad Yima and finish with a hammam or a treatment at the Mandarin Oriental spa.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
A brand-new treatment for pancreatic cancer may be the best oncology launch of all time.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 5, 2026
The potential market was big—worldwide, as many as 750,000 people suffered from MDR, and treating all of them would require a significant quantity of drugs, because treatment lasted so long.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
According to a KFF survey, only about a quarter of large firms that offer health benefits cover advanced treatments like IVF.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
Scientists are now working to turn these bacteria-killing viruses into treatments for dangerous infections that no longer respond to conventional antibiotics.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 5, 2026
So why does stress from uncovered fertility treatments spill into women’s work lives?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
Personalized phage therapy may be considered when established treatments have failed, are unavailable, or cannot be used safely.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 5, 2026
It was easy to fight my treatments and focus on the time I do have.
From "Five Feet Apart" by Rachael Lippincott
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
