the.com/fire sale
Everything must go, because the alternative is it already did.
means A sale of goods at drastically reduced prices, usually because a business is failing, closing, or desperate for quick cash.
from Literally what it sounds like: originally goods damaged by fire (or water from firefighting) were sold off cheap rather than tossed out, since smoke-stained or scorched stock was hard to sell at full price. By the early 1900s the phrase had leaped from singed merchandise to any desperate, everything-must-go liquidation — fire optional, panic mandatory.
- origin
- originally literal: damaged goods sold cheap after actual fires
- signal
- urgency is the product, not the price
- business use
- often means the company is next, not just the inventory