treaty
n. countablen. a formal, written agreement between two or more countries. It's like a contract for nations, and it becomes official when the countries' leaders sign it.
n. a formally concluded and ratified agreement between states. It is a binding instrument in international law.
The two countries sign a peace treaty.
The leaders met to negotiate a new trade treaty that would lower taxes on imported goods.
The treaty, though signed with great ceremony, contained ambiguous clauses that later became the source of prolonged international dispute and legal challenges.
The noun is derived from Middle English trete, trety (“bargaining, negotiation; discussion; conference, meeting; entreaty, persuasion; agreement, contract, covenant; arrangement, settlement; agreement between two rulers, states, etc.; written work on a particular subject, treatise; subdivision of a written work, section”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman treté, traité, treaté, and Old French traité, traitié [and other forms] (modern French traité (“agreement between two rulers, states, etc.; treatise”)); traité or traitié is: * a noun use of the past participle of traiter (“to treat; to deal with, handle”), from Latin tractāre, the present active infinitive of tractō (“to drag, haul, tug; to handle, manage; to debate, discuss; to exercise, practise; to perform, transact”), from trahō (“to drag, pull”) + -tō (frequentative suffix); and * also from Latin tractātum (“written work on a particular subject, treatise”), from Latin tractātus (“dragged, hauled, tugged; handled, managed; exercised, practised; performed, transacted”), the perfect passive participle of tractō (see above). The verb is derived from the noun.
Commonly collocates with verbs like 'sign', 'ratify', and 'negotiate', and takes the preposition 'between' to name the parties involved.
a peace treatisea peace treatyLearners may confuse 'treaty' (a formal agreement between states) with 'treatise' (a formal written work on a subject).