traiter

Trait er is a French verb with several related meanings centered on the idea of handling, processing, or dealing with something or someone. It can describe how people are treated, how tasks or problems are managed, or how diseases and data are processed. Common senses include: to treat someone or something in a particular way (bien traiter quelqu’un; traiter un client), to deal with or address a topic, issue, or file (traiter un sujet; traiter un dossier), to provide medical care for a disease or condition (traiter une maladie), and to process or manipulate data or information (travailler, traiter des données). A related sense is to treat someone by labeling them as something, as in traiter quelqu’un de menteur (to call someone a liar). In everyday use, rencontrer and traiter are usually transitive, often followed by direct objects or prepositional phrases.

Etymology traces traiter to Old French traiter, from Latin tractare “to handle, manage, treat,” itself from tractus “a dragging, dealing with.” This lineage reflects the verb’s broad sense of handling or dealing with things in various domains.

Grammatical notes: traiter is a regular -er verb. Present tense forms include je traite, tu traites, il traite, nous traitons, vous traitez, ils traitent. The past participle is traité, used with auxiliary avoir in compounds such as j’ai traité. Its participle present is traitant, and the past anterior and other tenses use standard -er conjugations. The noun treatment, traitement, is frequently used for medical, legal, or data contexts.

Translations commonly align with English “to treat,” “to handle,” “to deal with,” or “to process,” depending on context.