sell

• IPA^(key): /sɛl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Homophones: cel, cell
• Rhymes: -ɛl

From Middle English sellen, from Old English sellan (“give; give up for money”), from Proto-West Germanic *salljan, from Proto-Germanic *saljaną, from Proto-Indo-European *selh₁-. Compare Danish sælge, Swedish sälja, Icelandic selja.

sell (third-person singular simple present sells, present participle selling, simple past and past participle sold)

2. (transitive, ditransitive, intransitive) To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.

   Synonyms: peddle, vend

   She sold her old car very quickly.

   I'll sell you three books for a hundred dollars.

   Sorry, I'm not prepared to sell.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 19:21:

     If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.

   • 2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:

     No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.

3. (ergative) To be sold.

   This old stock will never sell.

   The corn sold for a good price.

5. (transitive) To promote (a product or service) although not being paid in any direct way or at all.
   • 2016, “The Fetal Kick Catalyst”, in The Big Bang Theory:

     Howard: You're gonna feel terrible when I'm in a wheelchair. Which, by the way, would fit easily in the back of this award-winning minivan.
     Bernadette: Fine, we'll go to the E.R. Just stop selling me on the van.
     Howard: You're right. It sells itself.

7. (transitive) To promote (a particular viewpoint).

   My boss is very old-fashioned and I'm having a lot of trouble selling the idea of working at home occasionally.

8. (transitive) To betray for money or other things.
9. (transitive, slang) To trick, cheat, or manipulate someone.
   • 1605 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, Ben: Ionson His Volpone or The Foxe, [London]: […] [George Eld] for Thomas Thorppe, published 1607, →OCLC, (please specify the Internet Archive page):

     Then weaues
     Other crosse-plots
     New tricks for safety, are sought;
     They thriue: When, bold,
     Each tempt's th'other againe, and all are sold.

   • 1884, Mark Twain, chapter XXIII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

     House was jammed again that night, and we sold this crowd the same way.

   • 2011 January 12, Saj Chowdhury, “Blackpool 2-1 Liverpool”, in BBC:

     Raul Meireles was the victim of the home side's hustling on this occasion giving the ball away to the impressive David Vaughan who slipped in Taylor-Fletcher. The striker sold Daniel Agger with the best dummy of the night before placing his shot past keeper Pepe Reina.

10. (transitive, professional wrestling, slang) To pretend that an opponent's blows or maneuvers are causing legitimate injury; to act.
11. (Australia, slang, intransitive) To throw under the bus; to let down one's own team in an endeavour, especially in a sport or a game.

    He's selling!

    He really sold in that match.

• buy

• Chinese Pidgin English: sellum, 些林 (Chinese spelling)
• Sranan Tongo: seri

sell (plural sells)

1. An act of selling; sale.
   • 1963, American Society of Travel Agents, ASTA Travel News, volume 32, page 55:

     Now the easiest sell in traveldom is made even easier.

2. (figurative, by extension) The promotion of an idea for acceptance.

   This is going to be a tough sell.

3. An easy task.
4. (colloquial, dated) An imposition, a cheat; a hoax; a disappointment; anything occasioning a loss of pride or dignity.
   • 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 12”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:

     "Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it."

   • 1922, Katherine Mansfield, The Doll's House (Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, 354)

     What a sell for Lena!

• sale

From French selle, from Latin sella.

• selle (obsolete)

sell (plural sells)

1. (obsolete) A seat or stool.
   • 1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Fourth Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC, stanza 7, page 56:

     The tyrant proud frown’d from his loftie cell, [...].

2. (archaic) A saddle.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     turning to that place, in which whyleare / He left his loftie steed with golden sell, / And goodly gorgeous barbes, him found not theare [...].

From Old Saxon seill or Old Norse seil. Cognate with Dutch zeel (“rope”), German Seil (“rope”).

sell (plural sells)

1. (regional, obsolete) A rope (usually for tying up cattle, but can also mean any sort of rope).

   He picked up the sell from the straw-strewn barn-floor, snelly sneaked up behind her and sleekly slung it around her swire while scryingː "dee, dee ye fooking quhoreǃ".

• bowsell

• The Dictionary of the Scots Language

• ELLs, Ells, ells

From Proto-Celtic *stillom, cognate to Welsh syll and Old Irish sell.

• IPA^(key): /sɛl/

sell m

1. look, glance

From English sell.

sell

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) to sell; to promote services or products; to promote a viewpoint

• sales

• English Loanwords in Hong Kong Cantonese

sell

1. that one

sell

1. neuter nominative/accusative singular of seller: that

Declension of seller
	masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
nominative	seller	selle, selli	sell	selle, selli
dative	sellem, sem	sellere, sellre, seller	sellem, sem	selle
accusative	seller	selle, selli	sell	selle, selli

From Old English sellan.

• IPA^(key): /sɛl/

sell (third-person singular simple present sells, present participle sellin, simple past sellt or sauld, past participle sellt or sauld)

1. To sell.