sack
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: American-football
ball-games
baseball
football
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
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, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk sekk, Faroese and Icelandic sekkur, 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.
Inflected forms:
form: sacks
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: sacks
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: sacking
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: sacked
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: sacked
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A bag; especially a large bag of strong, coarse material for storage and handling of various commodities, such as potatoes, coal, coffee; or, a bag with handles used at a supermarket, a grocery sack; or, a small bag for small items, a satchel.
pos: noun
gloss: The amount a sack holds; also, an archaic or historical measure of varying capacity, depending on commodity type and according to local usage; an old English measure of weight, usually of wool, equal to 13 stone (182 pounds), or in other sources, 26 stone (364 pounds).
pos: noun
examples: The American sack of salt is 215 pounds; the sack of wheat, two bushels. — .
Seven pounds make a clove, 2 cloves a stone, 2 stone a tod, 6 1/2 tods a wey, 2 weys a sack, 12 sacks a last. [...] It is to be observed here that a sack is 13 tods, and a tod 28 pounds, so that the sack is 364 pounds.
Generally, however, the stone or petra, almost always of 14 lbs., is used, the tod of 28 lbs., and the sack of thirteen stone.
gloss: The plunder and pillaging of a captured town or city.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: the sack of Rome
gloss: Loot or booty obtained by pillage.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
gloss: A successful tackle of the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage.
pos: noun
gloss: One of the square bases anchored at first base, second base, or third base.
pos: noun
examples: He twisted his ankle sliding into the sack at second.
gloss: Dismissal from employment, or discharge from a position.
pos: noun
tags: informal
examples: give (someone) the sack
get the sack
The boss is gonna give her the sack today.
He got the sack for being late all the time.
A climate researcher has been threatened with the sack by his employer after refusing to fly back to Germany at short notice after finishing fieldwork on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands archipelago.
gloss: Bed.
pos: noun
tags: US
colloquial
figuratively
literally
examples: hit the sack
in the sack
gloss: A kind of loose-fitting gown or dress with sleeves which hangs from the shoulders, such as a gown with a Watteau back or sack-back, fashionable in the late 17th to 18th century; or, formerly, a loose-fitting hip-length jacket, cloak or cape.
pos: noun
tags: dated
examples: Molly, therefore, having dressed herself out in this sack, with a new laced cap, and some other ornaments which Tom had given her, repairs to church with her fan in her hand the very next Sunday.
Her Dress, too, was of the same cast, a thin muslin short sacque and Coat lined throughout with Pink, – a modesty bit – and something of a very short cloak half concealed about half of her old wrinkled Neck […].
This lady's interesting figure, on her wedding-day, was attired in a sacque and petticoat of the most expensive brocaded white silk, resembling net-work, enriched with small flowers […].
gloss: A sack coat; a kind of coat worn by men, and extending from top to bottom without a cross seam.
pos: noun
tags: dated
gloss: The scrotum.
pos: noun
tags: slang
vulgar
examples: He got passed the ball, but it hit him in the sack.
gloss: Any disposable bag.
pos: noun
gloss: To put in a sack or sacks.
pos: verb
examples: Help me sack the groceries.
The gold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty pounds to the bag, and piled like so much firewood outside the spruce-bough lodge.
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
gloss: To bear or carry in a sack upon the back or the shoulders.
pos: verb
gloss: To plunder or pillage, especially after capture; to obtain spoils of war from.
pos: verb
examples: The barbarians sacked Rome in 410 CE.
Thoſe thouſand horſe shall ſweat with martiall ſpoyle
Of conquered kingdomes, and of Cities ſackt, […]
It [a lyre] was part of the spoils which he had taken when he sacked the city of Eetion […]
gloss: To tackle the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage, especially before he is able to throw a pass.
pos: verb
examples: 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.
gloss: To discharge from a job or position; to fire.
pos: verb
tags: informal
transitive
examples: He was sacked last September.
[…] 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, […]
Waste my time working for cowards and creeps / Oh I wish that they'd sack me and leave me to sleep
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.
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.
gloss: To give up on, to abandon, delay, to not think about someone or something.
pos: verb
tags: Australia
slang
transitive
examples: Sack the homework.
Sack him, let's run.
Synonyms: pink slip
the boot
the chop
the elbow
one's cards
the old heave-ho
rack
Related words: haversack
knapsack
rucksack
sac
sachet
sack off
sack up
satchel
Derived words: back, crack and sack
backsack
ballsack
ball sack
ballsac
barley sack
bivouac sack
bollock sack
booksack
carisack
cat in the sack
coalsack
cock sack
cocksack
cornsack
crapsack
crocker sack
daysack
dicksack
dressing sack
dub sack
dumb as a sack of bricks
dumb as a sack of hammers
dumber than a sack of bricks
fart sack
feedsack
floursack
get the sack
give the sack
go down like a sack of potatoes
gripsack
gunny sack
gunnysack
hacky sack
hackysack
Hacky-Sack
hackeysack
halter-sack
happy sack
hit the sack
honey sack
hopsack
in the sack
like rats in a sack
loiter-sack
mailsack
minisack
more sacks to the mill
nap sack
nutsack
packsack
possibles sack
sack-back
sack barrow
sackcloth
sack dress
sack drill
sackful
sacking
sack knot
sacklike
sackload
sack lunch
sackmaker
sackmaking
sack man
sack of crap
sack of flesh
sack of shit
sack o' shit
sack race
sack silo
sack-tap
sack time
sack truck
sack-whack
sackwise
sad sack
Santa sack
shitsack
sick sack
sleepsack
sperm sack
stuff sack
supersack
ten sack
tent-sack
toe sack
towsack
unsack
woolsack
Zdarsky tent-sack
sackable
sackage
sackee
sacker
sack off
sack out
sack up
Translations: