sack

A ruse, swindle, or suspicious transaction. In English, the more common phrase is "(to buy a) pig in the poke" (a "poke" being an older word for a bag or sack), meaning to buy something without verifying its contents or value first; the "cat in the sack" (a phrase more common to other European languages) refers to an item of lesser quality or value that has been substituted in its place. This is also the basis for the phrase "the cat's out of the bag" (and iterations thereof), meaning the swindle or secret has been exposed. I thought I was getting a great deal buying my car from that online seller, but as soon as I drove it home, I realized I'd bought a cat in the sack.

To fire someone from a job or task. The new secretary is so rude—I need to give her the sack. I tried so hard to do a good job in Mrs. Smith's garden, but she gave me the sack anyway.

One must eat in order to carry out one's duties. Have some dinner before you go back to your research. An empty sack cannot stand upright, you know.

Fig. [to be] unable to sing a simple melody; lacking musical ability. I wish that Tom wouldn't try to sing. He can't carry a tune. I don't know why Mary's in the choir. She can't carry a tune in a bushel basket. Joe likes to sing in the shower, though he can't carry a tune in a bucket. I'd try to hum the song for you, but I can't carry a tune in a paper sack.

Prov. A poor or hungry person cannot function properly. Sit down and have something to eat before you go back to work. An empty sack can't stand upright.

Fig. to go to bed. I have to go home and hit the hay pretty soon. Let's hit the sack. We have to get an early start in the morning.

Sl. to go crazy. (See also crack up.) I knew I would nut up if I didn't quit that job. I almost nutted up at the last place I worked.

dismissal from one's employment. (*Typically: get ~; give someone ~.) Poor Tom got the sack today. He's always late. I was afraid that Sally was going to get the ax.

to go to bed or go to sleep. It's time for me to sack out. Let's sack out early tonight.

to put something into bags or sacks. Please sack the groceries up and put them in the cart. I will sack up your groceries.

asleep. Mary is sacked out in her room. Here it is ten o'clock, and you are still sacked out!

to be forced to give up your job Which employees are most likely to get the ax when the company downsizes?

to get into bed hit the sack It was time to hit the hay and drift off to sleep.

to get into bed hit the hay When I hit the sack, I read for a few minutes, then turn out the light.

to go to sleep You can bring your sleeping bags and sack out on the living room floor.

to go to bed I'm going to hit the sack - I'm exhausted.

to be told to leave your job He got the sack when they found out that he'd lied about his qualifications.

Also, get the boot or bounce or can or heave-ho or hook or sack . Be discharged or fired, expelled, or rejected. For example, He got the ax at the end of the first week, or The manager was stunned when he got the boot himself, or We got the bounce in the first quarter, or The pitcher got the hook after one inning, or Bill finally gave his brother-in-law the sack. All but the last of these slangy expressions date from the 1870s and 1880s. They all have variations using give that mean "to fire or expel someone," as in Are they giving Ruth the ax?Get the ax alludes to the executioner's ax, and get the boot to literally booting or kicking someone out. Get the bounce alludes to being bounced out; get the can comes from the verb can, "to dismiss," perhaps alluding to being sealed in a container; get the heave-ho alludes to heave in the sense of lifting someone bodily, and get the hook is an allusion to a fishing hook. Get the sack, first recorded in 1825, probably came from French though it existed in Middle Dutch. The reference here is to a workman's sac ("bag") in which he carried his tools and which was given back to him when he was fired. Also see give someone the air.

see under get the ax.

Also, hit the sack. Go to bed, as in I usually hit the hay after the eleven o'clock news, or I'm tired, let's hit the sack. The first colloquial expression dates from the early 1900s, the variant from about 1940.

Go to sleep, go to bed, as in We sacked out about midnight. This slangy idiom is a verbal use of the noun sack, slang for "bed" since about 1940; it alludes to a sleeping bag and appears in such similar phrases as in the sack, in bed, and sack time, bedtime.

A singularly inept person, as in Poor George is a hopeless sad sack. This term alludes to a cartoon character, Sad Sack, invented by George Baker in 1942 and representing a soldier in ill-fitting uniform who failed at whatever he tried to do. It was soon transferred to clumsily inept civilians.