the air

the air

A dismissal or rejection. Usually used after "get" or "give." Samantha has had a broken heart ever since she got the air from Tom. Management promptly gave the new accountant the air after his miscalculation cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.
See also: air
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

*the air

Fig. a dismissal. (*Typically: get ~; give Someone ~.) Whenever I get around Tom, I end up getting the air.
See also: air
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • get the air
  • get the elbow
  • not a peep from/out of (someone)
  • give (someone) credit
  • give credit
  • give credit to (someone)
  • has the world by the tail
  • have the world by the tail
  • pour (one's) heart out (to someone)
  • pour out one's heart
References in classic literature
"Perhaps we can walk on the air ourselves," replied the girl.
As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree, The Angel of the Air he offered all the Air in fee.
You also came through the air, being carried by a cyclone.
There now remained only the question of air; for allowing for the consumption of air by Barbicane, his two companions, and two dogs which he proposed taking with him, it was necessary to renew the air of the projectile.
He was ready to don the diving-dress himself, or try the air apparatus, in order to reconnoiter the situation of his courageous friends.
A weight of four thousand pounds is represented by a displacement of the air amounting to forty-four thousand eight hundred and forty-seven cubic feet; or, in other words, forty-four thousand eight hundred and forty-seven cubic feet of air weigh about four thousand pounds.
She caught herself with a quick beat of wings, fluttered about undecidedly for a space, then rose in the air.
Once upon a time there lived a Fairy who had power over the earth, the sea, fire, and the air; and this Fairy had four sons.
Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is combined with the element in which they swim, hence, a herring or a cod might live a century, and never once raise its head above the surface.
"Do you find that the air here makes you drowsy?" Francine asked.
For the air here outside was better than with the higher men.
"Well, if friend Nick can manufacture, from this mess of rubbish, a Thing that will fly through the air and carry us to safety, then I will acknowledge him to be a better mechanic than I suspected."
All my will was concentrated on breathing--on breathing the air in the hugest lung-full gulps I could, pumping the greatest amount of air into my lungs in the shortest possible time.
It was then they heard for the first time of the real scale of the Dornhof aeronautic park and the possibility of an attack coming upon them not only by sea, but by the air. But it is curious that so discredited were the newspapers of that period that a large majority of New Yorkers, for example, did not believe the most copious and circumstantial accounts of the German air-fleet until it was actually in sight of New York.
She had been running and her hair was loose and blown and she was bright with the air and pink-cheeked, though he could not see it.