Ghosting
Etymology
From "ghost" used as a verb: to vanish as a ghost does, present one moment and gone the next. The dating and social sense surged in the mid-2010s alongside app-based communication and entered mainstream dictionaries around 2017. The metaphor works because the ghoster becomes an absence that still haunts the inbox.
noun · /GOHST-ing/
Ending a relationship by abruptly and completely cutting off contact, offering no explanation and answering no messages.
What it names
A specifically modern cruelty enabled by digital communication — the clean disappearance that leaves the other person with no closure — and lets us treat it as a recognizable behavior rather than a personal mystery.
Example
They had three great dates and then he ghosted her completely — not even a read receipt.
Related idea
Breadcrumbing keeps someone on the hook with occasional contact; ghosting is the opposite extreme, total and sudden silence.