TRICK OR TREAT

a traditional activity at Halloween , in which children dress in costumes and visit houses. At each house they say ‘Trick or treat?‘ This means that they threaten to play a ‘trick’, or joke, on the people in the house unless they are given a ‘treat’, e.g. sweets or money. The practice of ‘trick or treat’ began in the US in the 1930s but is now common in Britain also.