the sack

the sack

Dismissal from employment. Usually used after "get" or "give." They gave me the sack for sleeping on the job. After they announced cutbacks, a lot of us were afraid of getting the sack.
See also: sack
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

the sack

verb
See sack
See also: sack
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • the ax(e)
  • sack up
  • give (one) the sack
  • sack
  • sack, to get/give the
  • give somebody/get the sack
  • get the sack
  • sack rat
  • hit the sack
References in classic literature
She looked suspiciously at the sack and wondered where everybody was?
She nibbled a hole in the bottom corner of the sack.
(Aristotle, "Poetics", xxiii; Pausanias, x, 25-27), that the "Little Iliad" also contained a description of the sack of Troy.
As soon as the man in the sack saw him passing under the tree, he cried out,
Then the man in the tree answered, 'Lift up thine eyes, for behold here I sit in the sack of wisdom; here have I, in a short time, learned great and wondrous things.
If while he was being carried out the grave-diggers should discover that they were bearing a live instead of a dead body, Dantes did not intend to give them time to recognize him, but with a sudden cut of the knife, he meant to open the sack from top to bottom, and, profiting by their alarm, escape; if they tried to catch him, he would use his knife to better purpose.
The two men, approaching the ends of the bed, took the sack by its extremities.
And so they began hunting about, and took as much silver as they could lay hands upon, clapping it into a bag, and when they had filled the sack they set forth to Sherwood Forest.
We have gotten a bag of it this day." So saying, he held up the sack of silver that Little John and the Cook had brought with them.
The girl's joy was great, and so was her parents' next day when they found the sack full of gold pieces.
He didn't like the idea of going back to his hut in the wind and wet, so he just stepped as he was into the girl's room, laid the sack of gold beside her, and was turning to leave the room, when his master confronted him and said, 'You young rogue, so you were going to steal the gold that a good Fairy brings every night, were you?' The Herd-boy was so taken aback by his words, that he stood trembling before him, and did not dare to explain his presence.
I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug.
Then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and full of rushes -- and ducks too, you might say, in the season.
"I'm going to do two things: first, weigh my sack; and second, bet it that after you-all have lifted clean from the floor all the sacks of flour you-all are able, I'll put on two more sacks and lift the whole caboodle clean."
One hundred pun' more--my frien', not ten poun' more." The sacks were unlashed, but when two sacks were added, Kearns interfered.