pink slip
A notice of termination of employment.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“She got a pink slip after ten years at the company.”
“You worry about getting a pink slip when the economy is bad.”
“The manager called him into the office and handed him a pink slip without any warning.”
“If the airline continues to lose money, thousands of pilots might receive a pink slip by the end of the quarter.”
“When the factory closed, hundreds of workers received pink slips on the same bleak December morning.”
From *pink* + *slip*, denoting a piece of paper. The term refers to the hue of the document, a convention which persists in the name regardless of whether the physical paper remains that colour in modern practice.
In the context of an automobile title, the term is most likely from California. In that state, the legal title was historically printed on a small, index-card sized piece of pink paper. In most other states, the equivalent document is typically a full-size sheet of blue or blue-green paper featuring borders similar to those found on a stock certificate.
- 01
give someone the slip
To evade, escape, or get away from somebody.
- 02
let slip
To divulge a secret, as by accident or mistake.
- 03
let something slip
To accidentally reveal a secret.
- 04
slip back to old ways
to return to past bad habits
- 05
slip into
To put on some clothes rapidly.
- 06
slip of the pen
A mistake in handwriting; (loosely) any minor error by the writer that made it into print, having not been caught by editors or proofreaders.
- 07
slip of the tongue
A mistake in speech.
- 08
slip out
To leave quietly and unnoticed.
Last updated August 10, 2026