Meaning
To dismiss someone from a job, expel them from a place or group, or end a relationship with them abruptly. Blunt informal usage that makes the dismissal sound summary and a little callous, so it suits gossip and headlines more than a face-to-face sacking. The receiving side is expressed with get. Informal; dismissive or humorous connotation that can sound callous about real job losses. Regional use: General English (clothing origin).
Origin
The boot here is the kicker's instrument: the phrase pictures the departing person helped on their way by a boot to the backside. Etymonline documents the stages: the verb boot, to kick or drive by kicking, is recorded from 1877 in American English, the generalized sense of ejecting or kicking out from 1880, and give someone the boot, meaning to dismiss, from 1888. The idiom is unrelated to the old phrase to boot, meaning in addition, which comes from an Old English word for remedy or advantage. No reliable source consulted traces it to a single older dismissal formula, so claims about a specific ancestor remain unverified.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- be given the boot
- boot someone out
- get the order of the boot
Usage Examples
- Two editors got the boot when the publisher merged the newsrooms.
- Security gave the boot to a group of fans who kept climbing onto the stage.
- After the third cancelled date in a row, Marisol gave him the boot and deleted his number.