layoff
the act of dismissing employees, especially temporarily.
a period of enforced unemployment or inactivity.
Origin of layoff
1Words that may be confused with layoff
- lay off, layoff
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use layoff in a sentence
And all this before the mass buyouts and layoffs that came later in the year.
The closings and layoffs come amid unprecedented opposition from former pastors and church members.
Doyle, officially a contractor, said he was told that he was being let go as part of a program of layoffs at the New Mexico lab.
Fired From Los Alamos for Pushing Obama's Nuclear Agenda | Center for Public Integrity | July 31, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThat plan is pleasing investors: After the layoffs were announced, Microsoft stock jumped 3.8 percent to a 14-year high.
And third, a “last-in, first-out” law gives priority to seniority over success in times of teacher layoffs.
Vergara v. California: The Most Important Court Case You’ve Never Heard Of | Campbell Brown | May 29, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
No "layoffs" because of strikes, poor business, etc.—sure pay—rapid advancement.
British Dictionary definitions for lay off
(tr, adverb) to suspend (workers) from employment with the intention of re-employing them at a later date: the firm had to lay off 100 men
(intr) informal to leave (a person, thing, or activity) alone: lay off me, will you!
(tr, adverb) to mark off the boundaries of
(tr, adverb) soccer to pass or deflect (the ball) to a team-mate, esp one in a more advantageous position
gambling another term for hedge (def. 10)
the act of suspending employees
a period of imposed unemployment
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for layoff
The temporary or permanent removal of a worker from his or her job, usually because of cutbacks in production or corporate reorganization.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Other Idioms and Phrases with layoff
Terminate a person from employment. For example, When they lost the contract, they had to lay off a hundred workers. This expression formerly referred to temporary dismissals, as during a recession, with the idea that workers would be hired back when conditions improved, but with the tendency of businesses to downsize in the 1990s it came to mean “terminate permanently.” [First half of 1800s]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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