put out to pasture

present singular third person puts out to pasture · participle present putting out to pasture

1. informalTo make someone retire, especially due to advancing age.

   They've put John out to pasture and replaced him with someone who's got half his experience.

   2 more examples

   Your institutions were important stepping stones. Now they rot. Continuous revolution goes on and you're not with it with your alcoholic, tawdry, self-indulgent subculture. Put out to pasture your dialectic writers, they deserve a good green one, but the revolution must go on.

   1978 December 23, anonymous author, “More Angry Young Men”, in Gay Community News, volume 6, number 22, page 2

   “But I’m just an old guy they put out to pasture — a simple painter,” added the 43rd president, who said he published the book to “elevate” the discourse around immigration.

   2021 April 20, Glenn Thrush, quoting George W. Bush, “George W. Bush calls the current G.O.P. ‘isolationist, protectionist’ and ‘nativist.’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: put out to grass

2. informalTo discontinue something.

   That version of the program has been put out to pasture.

   1 more example

   The other problem was that the electrical locomotives vibrated, […] The electrical locomotives were put out to pasture, the carriages were adapted, and Electrical Multiple Unit traction was introduced from 1903.

   2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 119

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see put out, to, pasture.