silent treatment

English

Pronunciation

Audio (AU) (file)

Noun

silent treatment (usually uncountable, plural silent treatments)

(idiomatic) A form of social sanction that consists of ignoring a particular individual, neither speaking to that person nor responding to his or her words.
- 1917, Jack London, “That Dead Men Rise Up Never”, in The Human Drift and Other Stories:
  Finally we gave him the silent treatment, and for weeks before he died we neither spoke to him nor did he speak to us.

Usage notes

Usually preceded by the.

Translations

ignoring a particular individual

Chinese:
Mandarin: 不理不睬 (zh) (bùlǐbùcǎi)
Finnish: eristäminen (fi), mykkäkoulu (fi)
German: (give the silent treatment) anschweigen (de), mit Schweigen strafen
Hungarian: csenddel verés
Italian: trattamento del silenzio
Polish: ciche dni m
Portuguese: please add this translation if you can
Russian: please add this translation if you can
Spanish: hacer el vacío
Tagalog: tampo

See also

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