put out to pasture
The phrase "put out to pasture" is often used informally to describe retirement or dismissal, drawing a parallel to animals being sent to graze when they are no longer useful.
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🇬🇧 UK Voice:
Definition
B2Employment
(informal, idiomatic)To retire someone from their job, often due to age or decreased performance.
Example
- After 30 years with the company, they decided to put him out to pasture.
B2Employment
(informal, idiomatic)To remove someone from a position of responsibility, typically because they are no longer considered effective.
Example
- The CEO was put out to pasture after the company faced several financial setbacks.
B1Agriculture
(literal)To place an animal in a field to graze, often when it is no longer needed for work.
Example
- The old horse was put out to pasture to live out its remaining years peacefully.
Similar
Terms that have similar or relatively close meanings to "put out to pasture":
put to sleepkick into the long grassput to bedhang up one's bootsgo to seedsend to the glue factoryage out