get the sack (boot, axe)
get the sack
Meaning
- be dismissed from the job
- be discharged or fired, expelled, or rejected
- eliminate someone from a job or school
- to be told to leave your job, school, group or relationship
- to be fired
Variants | Synonyms
- get the boot
- get the axe
- order of the boot
- kicked out
- booted out
Example Sentences
- If you can’t do your job properly, you’re going to get the sack.
- The engineer who was with the office for the last 20 years was shocked when he got the boot for a minor mistake.
- You can get the sack for your poor performance.
- The doctor in a government hospital gets the boot on charges of unauthorised absence from duty.
- Workers who get booted by the company can pay fines to get the boot removed.
- She is going to get the axe if the manager finds out her faults.
- After failing to win reelection in 1992, George H.W. Bush said he had been given the “Order of the Boot.”
Origin
The idiom and its variants started appearing in print from the late 19th century.
Share your opinions2 Opinions
There are two ( or maybe more ) thoughts on the origins of:
(A) Ancient Roman punishments were brutal, with crucifixion topping the list. However, killing one’s relatives led to an even more bizarre penalty—being sewn into a sack with wild animals, highlighting Rome’s extreme measures for parricide. The ‘Punishment of the Sack’ involved sealing the perpetrator in a sack with a venomous snake, monkey, rooster, and dog, then tossing them into the water to meet a dreadful end through drowning—a chilling testament to Roman cruelty.
(B) It was common for workers to travel from job to job, and rather than joining a group or team, tradesmen, craftsmen and labourers would move around on their own, carrying their own sets of tools and supplies with them, and find work where they could get it.
The easiest and cheapest way to lug their tools around was in a sack, which they would then leave with their latest employer for safe keeping. Before any thoughts of unions or the like, there was obviously no job security. There were no contracts, all the workers had was a verbal agreement, so workers could be discharged at a moment’s notice. Therefore when their services were no longer required, and they were dismissed, they were literally given their sack, to pack it up and leave.
‒ Iain Duffy January 30, 2025
How about the workhouse punishment for children who had been naughty or broken the rules and were stripped and made to wear an old sack with 3 hole cut in for arms and head then made to stand on a platform wearing only this diabolical sack..?
‒ Freddie Bradford December 22, 2024