What does “fristlos kündigen” mean in German?

Fristlos kündigen means to end a contract immediately, with no notice period — a serious legal term reserved for major breaches like theft or violence at work. It’s built from Frist (“deadline/notice period”) plus los (“without”) and kündigen (“to terminate”). In this clip, a child hijacks the phrase to announce she’s “quitting school effective immediately” — the joke is that she talks about school as if it were a job contract she could terminate on the spot.

A fristlose Kündigung (the noun form) requires a wichtiger Grund — an important reason that makes waiting out a normal notice period unreasonable — under German labor law, and usually only follows a formal warning (Abmahnung) for anything less severe. Both employer and employee can use the term in a real job, which is exactly the borrowed authority Emilia’s joke is leaning on — school isn’t a contract she can actually “kündigen,” fristlos or otherwise.