MALTREAT Synonyms: 74 Similar and Opposite Words

maltreat

verb

ˌmal-ˈtrēt

as in to abuse

to inflict physical or emotional harm upon a manager fired for maltreating the staff with needless insults a home for children who have been deprived and maltreated

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as in to attack

to abuse physically if you maltreat the puppy, we will take it away immediately

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of maltreat The Adams County Health and Human Services Department’s initial assessment indicated that the infant was maltreated, though a final autopsy report is still pending, TMZ reported. —

Theresa Braine, New York Daily News, 9 Mar. 2026 Social media can’t replace offline resources for children who are being maltreated. —

Laura Schwab Reese, The Conversation, 2 Sep. 2025 One to One concert the duo organized as a response to Geraldo Rivera’s truly shocking exposé of the Willowbrook institution, where children with disabilities were horrifically maltreated and abused. —

Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 29 Apr. 2025 Even the first stage of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine - on the pretext of protecting Russian speakers being maltreated - parallels Hitler’s sending shock troops into Czechoslovakia to purportedly safeguard German speakers along the Czech borderlands. —

Kevin Holden Platt, Forbes, 18 Dec. 2024 In 2022, the World Health Organization estimated that 1 billion children were maltreated each year around the globe. —

Marc D. Hauser, TIME, 3 Apr. 2024 The revelations come after years of intense scrutiny of Texas’ child welfare system, which included reports by blue-ribbon panels, a state district judge in Travis County and a state comptroller citing weak protection of youngsters maltreated by birth families and then roughly handled by the state. —

Allie Morris, Dallas News, 30 June 2023 The family is where you are first misjudged, maltreated, belittled, lied to and beaten—or not. —

Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 6 June 2023 Coincidentally, a landmark incident that led to the death of a Nigerian happened in 2009 in Guangzhou, where Nigerians were recently maltreated. —

Abdul-Gafar Tobi Oshodi, Quartz Africa, 31 May 2020

Recent Examples of Synonyms for maltreat

Verb

Prosecutors argue that Duckett was a monster in disguise who abused the badge and brutally raped and killed Teresa before dumping her body in a lake.

— Amanda Lee Myers, USA Today, 31 Mar. 2026
The officer laughed and explained that someone had called in a report about a canine possibly being abused or in need of emergency veterinary care due to the noise.

— Lydia Patrick, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 Mar. 2026