the.com/fired

Once it meant lighting a furnace; now it means your career caught the flame.

means To be dismissed from a job, usually involuntarily and often abruptly.

from Likely from the metaphor of expelling someone the way you discharge a gun or eject burning fuelto fire out. American business slang cemented it by the late 1800s.

Gun rootsSame root as firing a weapon: to discharge.
Euphemism armySpawned let go, downsized, right-sized, transitioned.
Pink slipTermination notices were once literally pink paper.
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