Treatment

Also 6 trait-, Sc. treit- [f. TREAT v. + -MENT. Cf. F. traitement (1255 in Hatz.-Darm.).]

  1.  Conduct, behavior; action or behavior towards a person, etc.; usage. (Const. of the person, etc., who is the object of the action.)

c. 1560.  A. Scott, Poems (S.T.S.), iv. 46. Sic treitment is a trane To cleive thair quaver caice.

1585.  Q. Eliz., in Four C. Eng. Lett. (1880), 29. My ambassador writes so muche of your honorable traitment of him.

1647.  Clarendon, Hist. Reb., I. § 49. This kind of Treatment was so ill suited to the Duke’s great Spirit.

1719.  De Foe, Crusoe, I. 38. The generous Treatment the Captain gave me, I can never enough remember.

1809–10.  Coleridge, Friend (1865), 85. Had Luther been himself a prince, he could not have desired better treatment.

1907.  Verney Mem., I. 280. Edmund complains of the treatment of the army by the treasurer.

  2.  Entertainment, feasting; an entertainment, banquet (= TREAT sb.¹ 4). Obs. exc. dial.

a. 1656.  Ussher, Ann., VI. (1658), 437. As to the treatments of the guests, sometimes 1000, otherwhiles 1500 tables were most richly spread.

1715.  trans. C’tess D’Anois’ Wks., 452. He gave her Treatments, with enchanted Balls, and Comedies every Evening.

1725.  Pope, Odyss., XIV. 71. Accept such treatment as a swain affords.

  3.  Management in the application of remedies; medical or surgical application or service.

1744.  Berkeley, Siris, § 95. Many are even rendered incurable by the treatment of inconsiderate physicians.

1781.  Med. Jrnl., Feb., 98. The third part … relates to the pathology and treatment of disorders of the nerves.

1797.  Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XI. 352/1. If this treatment prove very disagreeable to the patient.

1863.  Aitken, Pract. Med. (1866), II. 65. Treatment is chiefly conducted by diet and by medicines.

1875.  H. C. Wood, Therap. (1879), 380. Arsenic has long been used … as a remedy in the treatment of cutaneous diseases.

  4.  Subjection to the action of a chemical agent. Also attrib.

1828.  Webster, s.v., The treatment of substances in chimical experiments.

1900.  Westm. Gaz., 2 May, 9/3. Four extra cyanide treatment tanks [for gold ore].

  5.  Action or manner of dealing with something in literature or art; literary or artistic handling, esp. in reference to style.

1856.  Sat. Rev., II. 322. The mode of treatment adopted by the Rouman balladists.

1879.  H. Phillips, Notes Coins, 8. The boldness of design and power displayed in the treatment of their subjects.

1889.  Parry, in Grove, Dict. Mus., IV. 20/2. The last movement [of Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ Symphony], with its elaborate fugal treatment, has a vigorous austerity.

  6.  Discussion of terms of settlement; negotiation. rare.

1828.  Sir W. Napier, Penins. War, I. i. (Rtldg.), I. 116. The stipulations of a treatment between the juntas.

  7.  (rendering F. traitement, sense 5 in Littré.) Salary, emolument. nonce-use.

1852.  Fraser’s Mag., XLV. 170. The Professorship … is a very desirable appointment…. Its ‘annual treatments’ (to borrow a delicate Gallicism) amount to four hundred a year.