#TrickOrTreat2024 - Lingolol

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Alliterative/Endless Knot @AllEndlessKnot@toot.community

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is TRICK/TREAT #wotd #trick #treat #trickortreat #TrickOrTreat2024 #Halloween #spookyseason

Do you prefer to trick or get a treat? Turns out you may not have to choose, etymologically speaking. The word trick comes into English from Old North French trique “trick, deceit, treachery, cheating” from trikier “to deceive, cheat”, which correspond to the Old French forms triche and trichier, but before that the etymology is uncertain. One suggestion is that it comes from a Germanic origin akin to Dutch trek (from which we get English trek) meaning “drawing, pull” but also having the sense “trick, cunning”. It would then ultimately come from the Proto-Indo-European root *dhragh- “to draw, drag on the ground”, which is also the source of the word drag. This root is the rhyming variant of the root *tragh- “to draw, drag, move”, which came into Latin as trahere “to pull, draw”, which had the past participle tractus, which was the stem of the frequentative form tractare, literally “to draw violently, drag, tug” but with the usual sense “to handle, manage”. And it was from this sense that the word came into Old French as traitier “deal with, act toward”, and then into English ca. 1300 as treat meaning “negotiate, bargain, deal with” in other words “to negotiate a treaty” (same root). From the “managing, handling” sense we get the medical sense “to attempt to heal or cure”, and from the idea of entertaining those you’re treating with with food and drink, almost like a bribe, we get the sense of a treat as anything that gives much pleasure. Trick-or-treat!

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