Etymology

treaty

trea·ty
T1R1E1A1T1Y4

Today it means: A formal binding agreement concluded by subjects of international law, namely, states and international organizations; a convention, a pact. Full definition →

Middle English trete ← Anglo-Norman treté ← Old French traité
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Latin · derived fromtractātus“dragged, hauled, tugged; handled, managed; exercised, practised; performed, transacted”
  2. Latin · derived fromtractātum“written work on a particular subject, treatise”
  3. Latin · derived fromtractāre
  4. Old French · derived fromtraité
  5. Anglo-Norman · derived fromtreté
  6. Middle English · inherited fromtrete
  7. English todaytreaty

The noun is derived from Middle English trete, trety (“bargaining, negotiation; discussion; conference, meeting; entreaty, persuasion; agreement, contract, covenant; arrangement, settlement; agreement between two rulers, states, etc.; written work on a particular subject, treatise; subdivision of a written work, section”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman treté, traité, treaté, and Old French traité, traitié [and other forms] (modern French traité (“agreement between two rulers, states, etc.; treatise”)); traité or traitié is: * a noun use of the past participle of traiter (“to treat; to deal with, handle”), from Latin tractāre, the present active infinitive of tractō (“to drag, haul, tug; to handle, manage; to debate, discuss; to exercise, practise; to perform, transact”), from trahō (“to drag, pull”) + -tō (frequentative suffix); and * also from Latin tractātum (“written work on a particular subject, treatise”), from Latin tractātus (“dragged, hauled, tugged; handled, managed; exercised, practised; performed, transacted”), the perfect passive participle of tractō (see above). The verb is derived from the noun.

Words from the same roots

Latintractāre all →

Latintractātus all →

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.