sack
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /sæk/
rhymes: -æk
homophone: sac
homophone: SAC
Forms: form: sacks
form: sacking
form: sacked
form: sacked
Etymology: From Middle English sak, sek, sach, zech (“bag, sackcloth”), from Old English sacc (“sack, bag”) and sæċċ (“sackcloth, sacking”); both from Proto-West Germanic *sakku, from late Proto-Germanic *sakkuz (“sack”), borrowed from Latin saccus (“large bag”), from Ancient Greek σάκκος (sákkos, “bag of coarse cloth”), from Semitic, possibly Phoenician or Hebrew.
Cognate with Dutch zak, German Sack, Swedish säck, Danish sæk, Hebrew שַׂק (śaq, “sack, sackcloth”), Aramaic סַקָּא, Classical Syriac ܣܩܐ, Ge'ez ሠቅ (śäḳ), Akkadian 𒆭𒊓 (saqqu), Egyptian sꜣgꜣ. Doublet of sac, saccus, saco, and sakkos.
Černý and Forbes suggest the word was originally Egyptian, a nominal derivative of sꜣq (“to gather or put together”) that also yielded Coptic ⲥⲟⲕ (sok, “sackcloth”) and was borrowed into Greek perhaps by way of a Semitic intermediary. However, Vycichl and Hoch reject this idea, noting that such an originally Egyptian word would be expected to yield Hebrew *סַק rather than שַׂק. Instead, they posit that the Coptic and Greek words are both borrowed from Semitic, with the Coptic word perhaps developing via Egyptian sꜣgꜣ.
Sense evolution
* “Pillage” senses from the use of sacks in carrying off plunder. From Middle French sac, shortened from the phrase mettre à sac (“put it in a bag”), a military command to pillage; also parallel meaning with Italian sacco (“plunder”), from Medieval Latin saccō (“pillage”). From Vulgar Latin saccare (“to plunder”), from saccus (“sack”). See also ransack. American football “tackle” sense from this “plunder, conquer” root.
* “Removal from employment” senses attested since 1825; the original formula was “to give (someone) the sack”, likely from the notion of a worker going off with his tools in a sack, or being given such a sack for his personal belongings as part of an expedient severance. Idiom exists earlier in French (on luy a donné son sac, 17c.) and Middle Dutch (iemand den zak geven). English verb in this sense recorded from 1841. Current verb, to sack (“to fire”) carries influence from the forceful nature of “plunder, tackle” verb senses.
* Slang meaning “bunk, bed” is attested since 1825, originally nautical, likely in reference to sleeping bags. The verb meaning “go to bed” is recorded from 1946.
* Slang meaning "scrotum" is an ellipsis of ballsack.
Senses: examples: text: Help me sack the groceries.
text: The gold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty pounds to the bag, and piled like so much firewood outside the spruce-bough lodge.
ref: 1903 July, Jack London, “The Sounding of the Call”, in The Call of the Wild, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, page 197:
text: A girl porter sacking some of the many thousands of used railway tickets which are turned over by the London Passenger Transport Board to assist the waste paper salvage campaign
ref: 1942 May-June, “Notes and News”, in Railway Magazine, page 187, photo caption:
glosses: To put in a sack or sacks.
glosses: To bear or carry in a sack upon the back or the shoulders.
examples: text: The barbarians sacked Rome in 410 CE.
text: Thoſe thouſand horſe shall ſweat with martiall ſpoyle
Of conquered kingdomes, and of Cities ſackt, […]
ref: c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii:
text: It [a lyre] was part of the spoils which he had taken when he sacked the city of Eetion […]
ref: 1898, Homer, translated by Samuel Butler, The Iliad, Book IX:
synonyms: loot
ransack
glosses: To plunder or pillage, especially after capture; to obtain spoils of war from.
examples: text: On third down, the rejuvenated Rickey Jackson stormed in over All-Pro left tackle Richmond Webb to sack Marino yet again for a 2-yard loss.
ref: 1995, John Crumpacker and Gwen Knapp, "Sack-happy defensive line stuns Dolphins", SFGate.com, November 21
topics: American-football
ball-games
football
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To tackle the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage, especially before he is able to throw a pass.
examples: text: He was sacked last September.
text: […] Boris Berezovsky on Friday dismissed President Boris Yeltsin's move to sack him from his post as executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States, […]
ref: 1999 March 5, “Russian media mogul dismisses Yeltsin's bid to sack him”, in CNN.com:
text: Waste my time working for cowards and creeps / Oh I wish that they'd sack me and leave me to sleep
ref: 2008, “I Wish That They'd Sack Me”, in The Boy Bands Have Won, performed by Chumbawamba:
text: As an aside, Luddendenfoot once had a famous (or perhaps infamous) clerk - drunkard Branwell Brontë, brother to the famous Brontë sisters and writers. He was sacked from his post in March 1842 after an audit revealed a discrepancy in the books. Today, a blue plaque on the Jubilee Refreshment rooms at Sowerby Bridge station commemorates him.
ref: 2021 July 28, Paul Bigland, “Calder line captures picturesque Pennines”, in RAIL, number 936, page 66:
text: A group of St Petersburg local politicians who called for President Vladimir Putin to be sacked over the war in Ukraine faces the likely dissolution of their district council following a judge's ruling on Tuesday, one of the deputies said.
ref: 2022 September 13, Mark Trevelyan, Filipp Lebedev, “Russian council faces dissolution after call for Putin's removal”, in Bill Berkrot, editor, Reuters, archived from the original on 13 Sep 2022, Europe:
synonyms: word: axe
word: can
word: decruit
word: dehire
word: discard
word: remove
word: discharge
word: dismiss
word: downsize
word: fire
word: give the axe
word: give someone the boot
word: give someone their cards
word: give the chop
word: give the elbow
word: give someone the heave-ho
word: give someone the old heave-ho
word: lay off
word: let go
word: let someone go
word: make redundant
word: pink slip
word: promote to customer
word: retrench
word: sack
word: serve notice
word: shit-can
word: term
word: terminate
word: throw out
word: unhire
glosses: To discharge from a job or position; to fire.
examples: text: Sack the homework.
text: Sack him, let's run.
synonyms: word: fuck
word: forget
word: screw
glosses: To give up on, to abandon, delay, to not think about someone or something.
Derived terms: sackable
sackage
sacker
sack off
sack out
sack up