Also, get the boot or bounce or can or heave-ho or hook or sack . Be discharged or fired, expelled, or rejected. For example, He got the ax at the end of the first week, or The manager was stunned when he got the boot himself, or We got the bounce in the first quarter, or The pitcher got the hook after one inning, or Bill finally gave his brother-in-law the sack. All but the last of these slangy expressions date from the 1870s and 1880s. They all have variations using give that mean "to fire or expel someone," as in Are they giving Ruth the ax?Get the ax alludes to the executioner's ax, and get the boot to literally booting or kicking someone out. Get the bounce alludes to being bounced out; get the can comes from the verb can, "to dismiss," perhaps alluding to being sealed in a container; get the heave-ho alludes to heave in the sense of lifting someone bodily, and get the hook is an allusion to a fishing hook. Get the sack, first recorded in 1825, probably came from French though it existed in Middle Dutch. The reference here is to a workman's sac ("bag") in which he carried his tools and which was given back to him when he was fired. Also see give someone the air.

Also, give someone the brush off or the gate or the old heave-ho . Break off relations with someone, oust someone, snub or jilt someone, especially a lover. For example, John was really upset when Mary gave him the air, or His old friends gave him the brush off, or Mary cried and cried when he gave her the gate, or The company gave him the old heave-ho after only a month. In the first expression, which dates from about 1920, giving air presumably alludes to being blown out. The second, from the first half of the 1900s, alludes to brushing away dust or lint. The third, from about 1900, uses gate in the sense of "an exit." The fourth alludes to the act of heaving a person out, and is sometimes used to mean "to fire someone from a job" (see get the ax). All these are colloquialisms, and all have variations using get, get the air (etc.), meaning "to be snubbed or told to leave," as in After he got the brush off, he didn't know what to do.

see under get the ax; give someone the air.

Rise or seem to rise into view. For example, We waited and waited, and finally the rest of our party heaved into sight. This expression was at first used for ships rising over the horizon. [Late 1700s]