Withdrawing affection, warmth, or cheerfulness.
Withdrawing affection, warmth, or cheerfulness — going quiet, aloof, or pouty — as a non-confrontational signal of hurt feelings, with the expectation that the offender will notice and coax one back into good humor.
Less an attack than a quiet appeal: within a close, trusted bond it signals hurt and asks, indirectly, to be reassured — a move that fits Filipino norms of sidestepping open confrontation. What sets real tampo apart is that it expects a warm answer: the other is meant to notice and win the sulker back with lambing (tender coaxing), so it resolves in renewed closeness rather than the cold, punishing distance the English “silent treatment” implies.
Usually rendered “sulking,” though this is only approximate.
A native Tagalog/Filipino root, tampó. Its deeper Austronesian history is not well documented.
Not in the OED and with no documented major semantic change; a Tagalog/Filipino cultural-psychology term widely discussed in Filipino-studies literature.
Significant oversimplification risk: English sources (and even Wikipedia, which redirects “Tampo” to “Silent treatment”) equate it with the punitive silent treatment, importing manipulative/abuse connotations that misrepresent its culturally affectionate, reconciliation-seeking core.