pink slip

plural pink slips

1. idiomaticmetonymicallyA notice of termination of employment.

   2008, Warren Richard Plunkett, Raymond F. Attner, Gemmy S. Allen, Management: Meeting and Exceeding Customer Expectations, Thomson, 9th Edition, page 400, Oracle chose a weekend in which to notify PeopleSoft employees of their termination: the company sent them pink slips via express mail.

   2 more examples

   Pink slips are being handed out faster in corporate America than you can say, “Recession? What recession?”

   2003, Erica Orloff, Kathy Levinson, The 60-Second Commute: A Guide to Your 24/7 Home Office Life, page 139

   From 2002 to 2004, many individuals received pink slips as a result of a slow economy.

   2008, Chioma Isiadinso, The Best Business Schools' Admissions Secrets, page 4

   Synonyms: P45

2. USThe title document for an automobile.

   But when she visited the bank, all she found inside were the pink slip to her car, a passport she′d acquired two years ago before a vacation trip to Australia and a few other documents.

   1997, Jacqueline Diamond, Million-Dollar Mommy, Harlequin, unnumbered page

3. AustraliaNew South WalesAn automobile roadworthiness inspection certificate.

   Demand to see the pink slip (certificate of roadworthiness), as it proves the car is safe.

   2003, Margo Daly, Anne Dehne, Rough Guide to Australia, 6th edition, page 194

   2 more examples

   My car mechanic does the pink slip for my bike - he doesn't know anything about them but does know that I keep it in tip top condition.

   2001 March 21, Sharon, “Obtaining Pink Slip”, in aus.motorcycles (Usenet)

   If the car is still currently registered, then you can drive it to anyone, anywhere to get the pink slip. If its just out of registration ( within 3 months of the rego expiring) then you take it to the nearest one ( or so they say)

   2002 March 3, Terry, “Pink slip inspection?”, in aus.legal (Usenet)

present singular third person pink slips · participle present pink slipping · participle past pink slipped · past pink slipped

1. USinformaltransitiveTo terminate the employment of.

   1 more example

   After a week of anxiously watching the mailbox through little Japanese binoculars his wife had given him for a going-away present (she'd left him the day after he was pink-slipped) and getting nothing but sucker-list stuff through the regular deliveries that came each noon, he was jolted out of a boozy, black-and-white dream of jumping off The Stack into rush-hour traffic, by an insistent banging at the door.

   1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 84

   Synonyms: fire, let go, sack, axe, can, decruit, dehire, discard