silent treatment

plural silent treatments

1. uncountableusuallyhuman sciencesA form of communication refusal where one person deliberately ignores or withholds interaction from another, often in order to express anger, disapproval, or to exert control.

   to give someone the silent treatment

   3 more examples

   Finally we gave him the silent treatment, and for weeks before he died we neither spoke to him nor did he speak to us.

   1917, Jack London, “That Dead Men Rise Up Never”, in The Human Drift, New York: Macmillan, page 40

   We met one woman who had been given the silent treatment by her husband for 40 years. If the silent treatment becomes a longstanding pattern, you lose self-esteem and perspective.

   2023 December 12, Anita Chaudhuri, “The silent treatment: ‘One woman was ostracised by her husband for 40 years’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   So sailors used a tried technique to deal with an offender: the silent treatment. They would ignore him completely for weeks on end. That might sound like an innocuous action to you, but in truth, it was far from it. The silent treatment was, according to the writer Otis Ferguson in 1944, “a process so effective in the monotony of ship’s life as to make strong men weep.”

   2024 March 21, Arthur C. Brooks, “Whatever You Do, Don’t Do the Silent Treatment”, in The Atlantic

   Synonyms: avoidance, ostracism, shunning, avoidance, blackballing, blacklisting, discommendation, ostracism