Sacked

Sacked is a chiefly British slang term for being fired from a job. It also is a term used for describing a car's suspension, the condition of a quarterback tackled behind the line of scrimmage while attempting a pass in American and Canadian football, and is also North American slang for being kicked in the testicles.

To get sacked is a very old expression with an interesting history.

SACK, GIVE/GET THE SACK: To dismiss from employment, fire, ‘get the ax,’ ‘get the boot,’ ‘get the can,’ ‘get canned,’ ‘get the heave-ho,’ ‘get the hook,’ ‘get bounced.’ Also, specifically a) to reject (a suitor), to jilt [see 1882 quote below]; (b) to expel from school [see 1914 quote below].

The phrase was current in 17th-century France and was said of a servant or worker who had been dismissed by their master or boss. The expression appears in Randle Cotgrave’s 1611 Dictionary under ‘sac,’ which is ‘bag’ in French: “‘On luy a donné son sac’— said of servant whom his master hath put away.” Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang provided the equivalent expressions used by the Dutch ‘iemand den zak geven,’ to give someone the sack, and ‘den zak krijgen,’ to get the sack, but no dates were given.

The probable explanation for the expression is that in medieval times workman carried the tools or implements of their trade in a bag or sack, which they left at the end of the day in a safe place at their worksite. When an unsatisfactory worker was to be fired, on the last day on the job, his employer would hand him his pay and the sack containing his tools – he had gotten the SACK, he had been SACKED. Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang provides the equivalent Dutch phrases ‘iemand den zak geven,’ to give someone the sack, and ‘den zak krijgen,’ to get the sack, but no dates are provided.

Another somewhat less likely explanation, but one that is not discounted by many sources, is that Turkish sultans who grew tired of or dissatisfied in some way with a wife, had her taken from the harem, sewed up in a sack, and dumped into the Bosphorous. This practice of ‘sacking’ as a way of disposing of condemned criminals was also practiced by the Romans who similarly threw the unlucky chaps into the Tiber.

Many sources give 1825 as the first appearance of this expression in print in English, but the earliest quote I could find was offered by the OED (see 1841 quote below).

An obvious question that one may ask is, is there any relationship between the SACK meaning to plunder a city and the above SACK? Here’s what the Oxford English Dictionairy had to say on this point: "By some scholars it (SACK) is regarded as identical with sacco bag, or as a verbal noun from the derivative verb saccare, to put in a bag, with reference to the putting of plunder into bags or sacks. This is possible, but evidence is wanting.”

References

• Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
• Oxford Dictionary of Slang
• American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms (1992) Houghton Mifflin Company
• Cassell Dictionary of Slang (1998) ISBN 0-304-34435-4
• Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins
• Chapman's Dictionary of American Slang
• Facts on File Dictionary of Clichés
• Picturesque Expressions by Urdang

See also

• Quarterback sack
• Termination of employment