The origins of 5 terms related to employment status

We use scores of different terms to describe a change in employment.

Each word has a specific connotation—and an interesting backstory.

Let’s dive into the origins of these five terms related to one’s employment status:

Occasionally, it is used in reference to an end to employment in a civilian capacity as a euphemism when one is fired, or let go from employment, because of unsatisfactory performance or a violation of employment policies. Termination is also used, but it has an unpleasant connotation of impersonal indifference (and a wry association with the sense, for the term, of “death”).