serve notice

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

serve notice (third-person singular simple present serves notice, present participle serving notice, simple past and past participle served notice)

1. (law) To officially give a legal notice to.
   • 1894, Leonard Augustus Jones, A Treatise on the Law of Liens, Common Law, Statutory, Equitable and Maritime, →ISBN:

     One who desires to assert his right to the possession of a horse by virtue of his lien must ascertain the real owner and serve notice on him.

2. To warn or announce.
   • 2000, Nalini Bhushan, Stuart Rosenfeld, Of Minds and Molecules: New Philosophical Perspectives on Chemistry, →ISBN:

     Those same philosophy articles then immediately serve notice that, for simplicity, they will discuss only belief.

3. (idiomatic) To fire; to terminate one's employment or formal association.
   • 1922, A. M. Chisholm, A Thousand a Plate:

     "One white man." said Bill, after a brief inspection. "Out on his line, I s'pose, and there's no tellin' when he'll be back. So we won't wait. We'll just serve notice on him."

• (terminate employment): axe, let go, sack; see also Thesaurus:lay off