trattare

Forms

trattare (first-person singular present tràtto, first-person singular past historic trattài, past participle trattàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include tractare and tratare.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tractāre (“to drag; to handle; to manage; to discuss”), the frequentative or intensive of trahō (“to drag, pull”), formed on its past participle tractus.^[3][4][5][1] Many Italian senses were already Latin: handling and touching, managing, negotiating, behaving towards someone and discussing a subject.^[3][4] The same verb is French traiter, Occitan traitar, Portuguese tratar and Romanian trata, and Spanish has the inherited trechar (“to prepare (fish)”) beside learned tratar.^[4][6][7]

The origin of trahō is unclear: de Vaan finds its closest relatives in Celtic words for ebbing and pulling away, and thinks it may be a loanword shared by Italic and Celtic; a link with Proto-Germanic *draganą (“to drag”) is formally difficult.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Brunetto Latini (before 1292), in the sense of discussing or setting out a subject in speech or writing.^[3][5] The physical sense “to handle, touch” appears in Pier della Vigna and Dante: Matelda ridea… trattando più color con le sue mani (laughed, handling many colours with her hands).^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

Villani (before 1348) uses it for conducting and concluding business, and Dante for discoursing on a topic.^[3][10] The sense of treating a person in a certain way is dated by DELI to Guicciardini (before 1540), and Boccaccio already wrote of treating someone well or badly.^[3][6] The technical sense of processing a substance or material, and the medical sense of treating a disease, are modern.^[3][11]

Its derivatives divided the senses: trattato (1293–94, Dante) a treatise and a treaty, trattamento (1348–53) the way one is treated and later a wage or medical treatment, and trattativa (1799) negotiation, a 19th-century word that purists disliked.^[3] German borrowed the Latin verb as German traktieren in the 15th century.^[6]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Brunetto Latini uses trattare “to discuss”.^[3][5]
• 1293–1294 – Dante's Vita nova has trattato “treatise”.^[3]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for “to discourse”.^[3]
• Before 1348 – Villani uses it for “to conclude (an affair)”.^[3]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio has trattamento “way of receiving someone”.^[3]
• Before 1540 – Guicciardini uses it for “to treat (someone)”.^[3]
• 1799 – Trattativa “negotiation” is recorded.^[3]
• 1939–1940 – Palazzi records “to process (a substance)”.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To deal with, discuss or set out a subject in speech or writing; intransitive trattare di, to be about: Il libro tratta della vita nei monasteri medievali.^{[5][12][13][1]}
2. To negotiate, to bargain over: trattare l'acquisto di un terreno, il prezzo è trattabile, si può trattare.^[5][12][1]
3. To treat someone in a certain way: Mi ha sempre trattato come uno di famiglia.^{[5][12][13][1]}
4. Of a shop, hotel or restaurant, to serve its customers in a certain way.^[5][12][14]
5. To have dealings with someone, especially in business; to deal in a product.^{[5][12][11][1]}
6. To handle or use something with care or without it.^[5][13]
7. To process a material or substance: trattare il legno contro i tarli.^{[14][11][15][1]}
8. (medicine) To treat a disease or patient.^[13][11][1]

Word family

• trattato
• trattamento
• trattativa
• trattabile
• intrattabile
• trattazione
• trattatista
• maltrattare
• trattarsi

Related words

• trarre
• tratto
• ritrattare
• Latin tractō
• English treat

Usage notes

Common phrases are trattare con i guanti (to handle with kid gloves), trattare a pesci in faccia (to treat with contempt) and trattare dall'alto in basso (to look down on).^[5][12] The impersonal trattarsi di means “to be a matter of”.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3872
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
10. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
11. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli