treaty
Pluraltreaties
Verbtreaties, treatying, treatied
Pluraltreaties
Formstreaties, treatying, treatied
- 1A formal, binding agreement made between states or international organizations, such as a convention or pact.
The peace treaty was ratified by both parliaments within a month.
Several nations negotiated a treaty limiting carbon emissions.
Similarpact, accord, agreement, convention
Note
International law gives this sense its edge. A treaty is concluded by states or international organizations, the bodies that law treats as its subjects, so a bargain with a private company falls outside it. Treaties are signed, written up, and sometimes kept secret, as Gilbert Burnet says of James I's dealings with Spain. Middle English trete already covered both the bargaining and an agreement between rulers.
- 2An agreement or settlement reached after negotiations; a private compact, contract, or covenant.
Note
It survives chiefly in the fixed phrase private treaty, where the word names a settled bargain between parties rather than a pact between nations. Compact, contract and covenant are its nearest equivalents. Unlike the bargaining itself, it names the outcome and is countable: a private treaty, several private treaties. Outside that phrase the sense is archaic.
- 3Discussions or negotiations carried on in order to reach an agreement.
The merchants remained in treaty over the price of the cargo throughout the autumn.
To a meeting of the executors of late Viscˢˢᵉ Mordaunt's estate, to consider of the sale of Parsons Greene; being in treaty with Mr. Loftus, and to settle the halfe yeare's account.
1680, John Evelyn, “[Diary entry for 30 April 1680]”Note
The process rather than the product: parties are in treaty while they are still bargaining, before any binding agreement exists. John Evelyn's diary for 1680 has a dead viscountess's executors in treaty with a Mr. Loftus over the sale of Parsons Greene. The phrase served private dealings as readily as diplomatic ones. It is archaic now, and in negotiations does the same work in modern prose.
- 4
- 5To bring oneself or something into a specific situation by means of a treaty.
The diplomats treatied a settlement that divided the territory fairly.
Both sides sought to treaty an alliance before winter.
Similarnegotiate, broker, conclude
Note
The verb conjugates like other verbs ending in -y: treatied for the past tense and past participle, treatying for the present participle. Its third-person form, treaties, is spelled exactly like the noun plural, so only the syntax separates "she treaties" from "the treaties". In this use it is transitive and takes the situation reached as its object. Its intransitive partner means simply to enter into a treaty.
- 6A formal, systematic written discussion of a particular subject; a treatise.
The philosopher composed a lengthy treaty on the nature of virtue.
Her treaty on herbs drew on years of study in the monastery garden.
Note
Thomas Browne, writing in 1650, calls Moses' account of the Creation a treaty, and Burnet mentions printed treaties issued by ministers in Holland. In both, the word means a written work where we now say treatise. Context matters in early modern prose, because Burnet also uses the word in the diplomatic sense.
- 7The handling or discussion of a subject, as in a sermon or piece of writing.
The sermon's treaty of mercy moved the whole congregation.
The chapter's treaty of grief is gentle and thorough.
Note
The abstract handling of a topic, and an uncountable noun, where the treatise sense is a countable written work. A writer's treaty of a subject meant the way it was discussed; today treatment or discussion says the same thing. The sense is obsolete, so it matters for reading older prose rather than for writing new.
- 8The manner or process of treating someone or something; also, the way in which someone or something acts or behaves.
The prisoners complained of the harsh treaty they suffered.
Hoſ[t]. They call me Good-ſtock. / Lov[el]. Sir, and you confeſſe it, / Both i'your language, treaty, and your bearing.
1629, B[en] Jonson, The New InneNote
Ben Jonson's The New Inne (1629) shows the behavioral side. A host's good nature is said to show in his language, treaty and bearing, where treaty means the way he conducts himself with others. The sense is obsolete, and treatment and behavior now divide its two halves between them. In older texts it is easily misread as an agreement.
- 9An act of beseeching or entreating; an earnest plea or request.
His tearful treaty moved the judge to spare the prisoner.
Now I must / To the young man ſend humble Treaties, dodge / And palter in the ſhifts of lovvnes, vvho / VVith halfe the bulke o' th' vvorld plaid as I pleas'd, / Making, and marring Fortunes.
c. 1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”Note
Here the word means a plea, close kin to entreaty, a meaning Middle English trete also carried. In Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Antony must "to the young man send humble treaties": a fallen ruler begging, not bargaining. The word humble is the clue that separates this sense from a diplomatic agreement. The sense is obsolete.
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Origin
The noun comes from Middle English trete or trety (meaning bargaining, agreement, or treatise), borrowed from Anglo-Norman and Old French traité. That word came from Latin tractāre (to handle, manage, or discuss), built on trahō (to drag or pull), and from tractātum (a written treatise). The verb is derived from the noun.