ill-treat

/'il'tri:t/

Thân thiện

The boss ill-treats his employees by shouting at them.

Definition

1. Verb:
   • To treat someone or something cruelly or unkindly: To cause physical or emotional harm through harsh or unfair actions.
   • To mistreat or abuse: To handle or behave toward a person, animal, or object with deliberate cruelty or neglect.

Examples of Usage

• Verb:
  • The investigation revealed that the owner would ill-treat the animals, leaving them without food.
  • It is illegal to ill-treat prisoners of war under international law.
  • Children should never be ill-treated by those who are supposed to care for them.

Advanced Usage

• "to ill-treat someone into submission": to use cruel treatment to force someone to obey.
  • The tyrannical ruler sought to ill-treat the population into submission.

Variants and Related Words

• Ill-treatment (noun): The act or instance of treating someone badly.
  • The ill-treatment of workers led to a strike.
• Maltreat (verb): A close synonym meaning to treat cruelly or violently.
  • To maltreat an employee is a serious ethical violation.

Synonyms

• Abuse: To use or treat improperly or cruelly.
• Mistreat: To treat badly or wrongly.
• Oppress: To keep in subservience through harsh, unjust treatment.

Related Phrasal Verbs

(Note: "Ill-treat" itself is not typically used in phrasal verb constructions. The concept is more commonly expressed with synonyms like "do over" (UK informal) or "beat up on.")

Related Idioms

• To kick someone when they are down: To treat someone badly when they are already in a vulnerable state (similar in spirit to ill-treating).
  • Firing her after the bereavement was like kicking her when she was down.

Học thuật

Verb

1. treat badly
   • This boss abuses his workers
   • She is always stepping on others to get ahead

Từ đồng nghĩa

• mistreat
• maltreat
• abuse
• ill-use
• step