get the sack

To be fired from a job or task. The new secretary is so rude—it's time she got the sack. I tried so hard to do a good job in Mrs. Smith's garden, but I got the sack anyway. Tommy had been warned numerous times, so I'm not surprised he got the sack after showing up late again today.

get the sack

see under get the ax.

give somebody/get the ˈsack

(informal) tell somebody/be told to leave a job, usually because of something that you have done wrong: If you don’t work harder you’ll get the sack. ♢ She gave him the sack because he was always late.This may refer to a servant losing their job. They were given their sack (= bag) of belongings and told to leave the house.

get the sack

and get the ax

tv. to be dismissed from one’s employment. Poor Tom got the sack today. He’s always late. If I miss another day, I’ll get the ax.

sack, to get/give the

To be fired or dismissed from work; to fire someone. This slangy expression dates from the seventeenth century or even earlier, probably originating in France. In those days workmen provided their own tools and carried them in a bag—sac in French—which they took away with them upon leaving. The term appears in Randle Cotgrave’s dictionary of 1611, under sac (“On luy a donné son sac—said of a servant whom his master hath put away”), and a similar term was used in Dutch as well. A newer synonym is to get/give the ax, which dates from the second half of the 1800s and alludes to the executioner’s ax. Both expressions also have been reduced to verbs meaning “to fire”: to sack someone (“I got sacked this morning”), or to ax someone/something (“The board axed the proposal for a new school building”).