means Money or benefits paid to an employee when their employment ends, especially involuntarily; more broadly, the act of cutting something off or apart.

from From the verb 'sever,' which came through Old French 'sevrer' from Latin 'separare' — 'to separate, pull apart.' The same Latin root gives us 'separate' itself; 'sever' is just its rougher, more violent-sounding cousin, worn down by centuries of French mouths. The '-ance' suffix turns the cutting into a thing — so 'severance' is, quite literally, the state of being cut loose. The payroll sense, where being severed comes with a check, is a relatively modern extension of that older meaning of clean separation.