Maltreat

//malˈtɹiːt// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To treat badly, to abuse.

    "he received a telegram from the prime minister ordering that on no account were Yacef and Zohra Drif to be maltreated in any way."

  2. 2
    treat badly wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
mistreatabuseabuseafflictaggrievebatter

Example

More examples

"he received a telegram from the prime minister ordering that on no account were Yacef and Zohra Drif to be maltreated in any way."

Etymology

From mal- + treat, after French maltraiter.

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