"silent treatment" meaning in English

See silent treatment in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-silent treatment.ogg Forms: silent treatments [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|-|s}} 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. Wikipedia link: silent treatment Tags: uncountable, usually Related terms: cold shoulder, cold treatment, conspiracy of silence, freeze out, ostracize, passive-aggressive, send to Coventry [UK], shun Translations (ignoring a particular individual): صَمْت عِقَابِيّ (ṣamt ʕiqābiyy) (Arabic), 不理不睬 (bùlǐbùcǎi) (Chinese Mandarin), eristäminen (Finnish), mykkäkoulu (Finnish), anschweigen (english: give the silent treatment) (German), mit Schweigen strafen (German), csenddel verés (Hungarian), trattamento del silenzio (Italian), ciche dni [nonvirile] (Polish), deixar no vácuo (Portuguese), hacer el vacío (Spanish), tiga ihjäl (Swedish), tampo (Tagalog), іґнорува́ння (ignoruvánnja) [feminine] (Ukrainian), бойко́т (bojkót) [masculine] (Ukrainian)

Inflected forms

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        {
          "text": "to give someone the silent treatment",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1917, Jack London, “That Dead Men Rise Up Never”, in The Human Drift, New York: Macmillan, page 40:",
          "text": "Finally we gave him the silent treatment, and for weeks before he died we neither spoke to him nor did he speak to us.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 December 12, Anita Chaudhuri, “The silent treatment: ‘One woman was ostracised by her husband for 40 years’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 March 21, Arthur C. Brooks, “Whatever You Do, Don’t Do the Silent Treatment”, in The Atlantic:",
          "text": "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.”",
          "type": "quote"
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      "glosses": [
        "A form of social sanction that consists of ignoring a particular individual, neither speaking to that person nor responding to his or her words."
      ],
      "id": "en-silent_treatment-en-noun-aiMDh1CL",
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          "sanction",
          "sanction"
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          "ignoring",
          "ignore"
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          "speak"
        ],
        [
          "respond",
          "respond"
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      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "cold shoulder"
        },
        {
          "word": "cold treatment"
        },
        {
          "word": "conspiracy of silence"
        },
        {
          "word": "freeze out"
        },
        {
          "word": "ostracize"
        },
        {
          "word": "passive-aggressive"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "UK"
          ],
          "word": "send to Coventry"
        },
        {
          "word": "shun"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "ar",
          "lang": "Arabic",
          "roman": "ṣamt ʕiqābiyy",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "صَمْت عِقَابِيّ"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "bùlǐbùcǎi",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "不理不睬"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "eristäminen"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "mykkäkoulu"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "english": "give the silent treatment",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "anschweigen"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "mit Schweigen strafen"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "csenddel verés"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "trattamento del silenzio"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "tags": [
            "nonvirile"
          ],
          "word": "ciche dni"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "deixar no vácuo"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "hacer el vacío"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "tiga ihjäl"
        },
        {
          "code": "tl",
          "lang": "Tagalog",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "word": "tampo"
        },
        {
          "code": "uk",
          "lang": "Ukrainian",
          "roman": "ignoruvánnja",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "іґнорува́ння"
        },
        {
          "code": "uk",
          "lang": "Ukrainian",
          "roman": "bojkót",
          "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "бойко́т"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "silent treatment"
      ]
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      "word": "cold shoulder"
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      "word": "cold treatment"
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      "word": "conspiracy of silence"
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      "word": "freeze out"
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      "word": "ostracize"
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      "word": "passive-aggressive"
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      "word": "send to Coventry"
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          "text": "Finally we gave him the silent treatment, and for weeks before he died we neither spoke to him nor did he speak to us.",
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          "type": "quote"
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        {
          "ref": "2024 March 21, Arthur C. Brooks, “Whatever You Do, Don’t Do the Silent Treatment”, in The Atlantic:",
          "text": "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.”",
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      ],
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    {
      "code": "ar",
      "lang": "Arabic",
      "roman": "ṣamt ʕiqābiyy",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "صَمْت عِقَابِيّ"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "bùlǐbùcǎi",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "不理不睬"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "eristäminen"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "mykkäkoulu"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "english": "give the silent treatment",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "anschweigen"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "mit Schweigen strafen"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "csenddel verés"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "trattamento del silenzio"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "tags": [
        "nonvirile"
      ],
      "word": "ciche dni"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "deixar no vácuo"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "hacer el vacío"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "tiga ihjäl"
    },
    {
      "code": "tl",
      "lang": "Tagalog",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "word": "tampo"
    },
    {
      "code": "uk",
      "lang": "Ukrainian",
      "roman": "ignoruvánnja",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "іґнорува́ння"
    },
    {
      "code": "uk",
      "lang": "Ukrainian",
      "roman": "bojkót",
      "sense": "ignoring a particular individual",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "бойко́т"
    }
  ],
  "word": "silent treatment"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-11-21 using wiktextract (65a6e81 and 0dbea76). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.