What does "maltreatment" mean?

Cruel or harmful treatment or abuse; mistreatment.

What is a synonym for "maltreatment"?

Common synonyms include: abuse, atrocity, disfavour, disfavour, ill treatment, ill usage.

How do you pronounce "maltreatment"?

Pronounced //malˈtɹit.mɛnt//.

Maltreatment

//malˈtɹit.mɛnt// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
Cruel or harmful treatment or abuse; mistreatment. countable, uncountable
2
cruel or inhumane treatment wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

abuse atrocity disfavour disfavour ill treatment ill usage

Example

More examples

"Korean mental hospitals have been compared to concentration camps. Patients are said to be treated like animals who are subjected to violence and maltreatment rather than therapy."

Etymology

By surface analysis, maltreat + -ment.

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