treating

Pluraltreatings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of treat.

   Doctors are treating dozens of patients after the crash.

   Treating wastewater properly protects the local rivers.

   Note

   Beyond the clinic and the treatment plant, the -ing form keeps the verb's older uses. Treating with a rival means bargaining with them. Treating a subject means handling it in speech or writing. Treating friends means paying for their food or drink. As a gerund it shades into the plain noun for treatment, which usually takes the and of, as in the treating of illness.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The action or process of dealing with or caring for someone or something; treatment.

   The treating of chronic illness often demands months of patient effort.

   Careful treating of the antique table restored its original shine.

   Similartreatment, handling, care

   Note

   Ambrose Bierce's "potations and treating" (1892) shows this noun leaning toward hospitality: a man drinking and standing drinks for others. In everyday use treatment has the wider job, and treating as a plain noun tends to appear where the action itself is in focus, usually with the and of: the treating of a table, the treating of an illness.

3. 3
   nounCommonwealthUKuncountable

   The electoral offense of offering a voter an inducement such as food, drink, or entertainment in order to influence their vote.

   The election petition alleged treating, pointing to free dinners laid on for voters at a local pub.

   Election officials investigated claims of treating at several polling stations.

   Similarbribery

   Note

   An offense in British and Commonwealth election law, and not only in Victorian cases: Boris Johnson raised it in 2015 over the Tower Hamlets mayoral election. It typically stands in a list beside bribery and intimidation. A charge can rest on food or drink supplied by a candidate's agents rather than by the candidate. The noun is uncountable, so a candidate is accused of treating, never of a treating.

4. 4
   nounhistoricaluncountable

   A historical practice in which men provided young women known as "charity girls" with outings, gifts, and entertainment in exchange for companionship and intimate favors.

   For many factory girls, treating offered an evening at the dance hall that their wages could never cover.

   Reformers worried that treating blurred the line between courtship and commerce.

   Note

   A historian's word for a whole social custom rather than a single act. It is uncountable, so writers speak of treating, never of a treating or of treatings. The young women involved were called "charity girls," a label of the period that is best kept in quotation marks. Do not confuse it with the electoral offense, where the treat buys a vote rather than company.

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