treatise

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman tretiz, from Old French traitis (“treatise, account”), from traitier (“to deal with, treat”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɹiːtɪs/, /ˈtɹiːtɪz/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

treatise (plural treatises)

1. A formal, usually lengthy, systematic discourse on some subject.
   • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314, page 0088:

     “ […] We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps ? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic ? […]”

   • 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 232d.

     And if someone wants to know how to make objections to actual craftsmen themselves on the subject of art in general or any particular art, there are published treatises available, as you know.

   • 2013 July-August, Sarah Glaz, “Ode to Prime Numbers”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:

     Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.

Synonyms

• dissertation
• disquisition
• monograph
• treatment (informal explanation, usually in essay form)

Related terms

• treat
• treaty

Translations

systematic discourse on some subject

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 論文 (zh), 论文 (zh) (lùnwén), 論述 (zh), 论述 (zh) (lùnshù), 專著 (zh), 专著 (zh) (zhuānzhù), 論著, 论著 (lùnzhù)

• Czech: pojednání n
• Danish: afhandling
• Dutch: verhandeling (nl) f, scriptie (nl)
• Esperanto: traktaĵo
• Finnish: tutkielma (fi)
• French: traité (fr) m
• Galician: tratado m
• German: Abhandlung (de) f, Traktat (de) m, n
• Greek: διατριβή (el) f (diatriví), πραγματεία (el) f (pragmateía)
• Hebrew: מסכת‎‎ f (masékhet)

• Hindi: प्रबंध (hi) m (prabandh)
• Icelandic: fræðileg ritgerð f
• Italian: trattato (it)
• Japanese: 論文 (ja) (ろんぶん, ronbun)
• Latin: detractatus m, tractātus m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: avhandling

• Portuguese: tratado (pt) m
• Romanian: tratat (ro) n
• Russian: тракта́т (ru) m (traktát), курс (ru) m (kurs), нау́чный труд m (naúčnyj trud)
• Spanish: tratado (es) m
• Swedish: avhandling (sv) c

Anagrams

• ariettes, iterates, teariest, testeria, treaties