Ill-treat

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To treat someone or something badly or unkindly; to abuse or mistreat.

    "He would never speak a word, only eat and cry, and she hadn't the heart to strike it or illtreat the youngster either; but somebody taught her a charm to make him speak, and then she found out what kind of a brat he really was."

  2. 2
    treat badly wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
mistreatabusebatterbruisebuffetdamage

Example

More examples

"It is cruel of him to ill-treat pets."

Etymology

From ill + treat.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.