silent treatment

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silent treatment (usually uncountable, plural silent treatments)

1. A form of social sanction that consists of ignoring a particular individual, neither speaking to that person nor responding to his or her words.

   to give someone the silent treatment

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

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

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

     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.

• Usually preceded by the.