treat

[[t]tri͟ːt[/t]]

♦♦

treats, treating, treated

1) VERB If you treat someone or something in a particular way, you behave towards them or deal with them in that way.

[V n with n] Artie treated most women with indifference...

[V n as/like n] Police say they're treating it as a case of attempted murder...

[V n adv] She adored Paddy but he didn't treat her well...

[V n adv] The issues should be treated separately.

2) VERB When a doctor or nurse treats a patient or an illness, he or she tries to make the patient well again.

[V n with n] Doctors treated her with aspirin...

[V n for n] The boy was treated for a minor head wound...

[V n] An experienced nurse treats all minor injuries.

3) VERB If something is treated with a particular substance, the substance is put onto or into it in order to clean it, to protect it, or to give it special properties.

[be V-ed with n] About 70% of the cocoa acreage is treated with insecticide...

[V n] It was many years before the city began to treat its sewage.

4) VERB If you treat someone to something special which they will enjoy, you buy it or arrange it for them.

[V n to n] She was always treating him to ice cream...

[V pron-refl to n] Tomorrow I'll treat myself to a day's gardening...

[V pron-refl] If you want to treat yourself, the Malta Hilton offers high international standards. [Also V n]

5) N-COUNT If you give someone a treat, you buy or arrange something special for them which they will enjoy.

Lettie had never yet failed to return from town without some special treat for him.

6) N-SING: poss N If you say that something is your treat, you mean that you are paying for it as a treat for someone else. [SPOKEN]

7) PHRASE: PHR after v If you say, for example, that something looks or works a treat, you mean that it looks very good or works very well. [BRIT, INFORMAL]

to treat someone like dirt → see dirt

The first part of the plan works a treat...

The apricots would go down a treat.