A tender, loving wounded pride.
A tender, loving wounded pride — the hurt, sulking reproach felt toward someone close from whom you expected better, when their action wounds you precisely because you love them.
Plain “pride,” “ego,” or “arrogance” miss the relational tenderness: abhimaan is felt only toward someone you love and from whom you expected better, and is expressed by sulking and withdrawal rather than open confrontation. Unlike cold resentment it presumes and preserves the bond (“I'm hurt because I care”), and an apology can deepen the relationship. Very close to Filipino tampo; sharper and warmer than mere pique.
abhi- “toward, upon” + māna “thinking, regard” = “self-regard, pride.”
Sanskrit abhimāna, from abhi- (“toward, upon”) + √man “to think, regard” — “directing thought upon oneself.” Monier-Williams: “high opinion of oneself, self-conceit, pride.”
Classical Sanskrit abhimāna spans the ego-function (ahaṃkāra) and “pride, arrogance,” but lexicons already record minor senses of “affection, love.” The distinctive modern emotional sense — affectionate sulking wounded pride — is especially prominent in Bengali (obhiman) and is the focus of recent psychological research: a genuine shift of emphasis from the classical “pride/ego” core.
Meaning differs between classical Sanskrit (“pride / ego / arrogance”) and the modern Hindi/Bengali emotional sense (“loving wounded pride / sulking”); dictionaries still foreground the former. There is no settled English equivalent — Tagore's translators render Bengali obhiman as “resentment,” “passionate pride,” and “hurt feeling.”