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Webster 1913 Edition

Sell

Sell

(sĕl)
,
Noun.
Self.
[Obs. or Scot.]
B. Jonson.

Sell

(sĕl)
,
Noun.
A sill.
[Obs.]
Chaucer.

Sell

(sĕl)
,
Noun.
A cell; a house.
[Obs.]
Chaucer.

Sell

(sĕl)
,
Noun.
[F.
selle
, L.
sella
, akin to
sedere
to sit. See
Sit
.]
1.
A saddle for a horse.
[Obs.]
He left his lofty steed with golden
self
.
Spenser.
2.
A throne or lofty seat.
[Obs.]
Fairfax.

Sell

(sĕl)
,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Sold
(sōld)
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Selling
.]
[OE.
sellen
,
sillen
, AS.
sellan
,
syllan
, to give, to deliver; akin to OS.
sellian
, OFries.
sella
, OHG.
sellen
, Icel.
selja
to hand over, to sell, Sw.
sälja
to sell, Dan.
sælge
, Goth.
saljan
to offer a sacrifice; all from a noun akin to E.
sale
. Cf.
Sale
.]
1.
To transfer to another for an equivalent; to give up for a valuable consideration; to dispose of in return for something, especially for money. It is the correlative of
buy
.
If thou wilt be perfect, go and
sell
that thou hast, and give to the poor.
Matt. xix. 21.
I am changed; I’ll go
sell
all my land.
Shakespeare
☞ Sell is corellative to buy, as one party buys what the other sells. It is distinguished usually from exchange or barter, in which one commodity is given for another; whereas in selling the consideration is usually money, or its representative in current notes.
2.
To make a matter of bargain and sale of; to accept a price or reward for, as for a breach of duty, trust, or the like; to betray.
You would have
sold
your king to slaughter.
Shakespeare
3.
To impose upon; to trick; to deceive; to make a fool of; to cheat.
[Slang]
Dickens.
To sell one's life dearly
,
to cause much loss to those who take one's life, as by killing a number of one's assailants.
–
To sell
(anything)
out
,
to dispose of it wholly or entirely; as, he had sold out his corn, or his interest in a business.

Sell

(sĕl)
,
Verb.
I.
1.
To practice selling commodities.
I will buy with you,
sell
with you; . . . but I will not eat with you.
Shakespeare
2.
To be sold;
as, corn
sells
at a good price
.
To sell out
,
to sell one's whole stock in trade or one's entire interest in a property or a business.

Sell

,
Noun.
An imposition; a cheat; a hoax.
[Colloq.]

Webster 1828 Edition

Sell

SELL

, for self; and sells for selves. [Scot.]

SELL

,
Noun.
[L. sella.] A saddle, and a throne. Obs.

SELL

,
Verb.
T.
pret. and pp. sold. [
1. To transfer property or the exclusive right of possession to another for an equivalent in money. It is correlative to buy, as one party buys what the other sells. It is distinguished from exchange or barter, in which one commodity is given for another; wheras in selling the consideration is money, or its representative in current notes. To this distinction there may be certain exceptions. 'Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a mess of pottage.' But this is unusual. 'Let us sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites- And they sold him for twenty pieces of silver.' Gen. 37.
Among the Hebrews, parents had power to sell their children.
2. To betray; to deliver or surrender for money or reward; as, to sell one's country.
3. To yield or give for a certain consideration. the troops fought like lions, and sold their lives dearly. that is, they yielded their lives, but first destroyed many, which made it a dear purchase for their enemies.
4. In Scripture, to give up to be harassed and made slaves.
He sold them into the hands of their enemies. Judg. 2.
5. To part with; to renounce or forsake.
Buy the truth and sell it not. Prov. 23.

Definition 2024

sell

sell

English

Verb

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  1. (transitive, intransitive) To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.
    • Bible, Matthew xix. 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.
    I'll sell you all three for a hundred dollars.   Sorry, I'm not prepared to sell.‎
  2. (ergative) To be sold.
    This old stock will never sell.   The corn sold for a good price.‎
  3. To promote a product or service.
    • 2016, "The Fetal Kick Catalyst", 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.
  4. 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.‎
  5. (slang) To trick, cheat, or manipulate someone.
    • (Can we find and add a quotation of Charles Dickens to this entry?)
    • 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.
  6. (professional wrestling, slang) To pretend that an opponent's blows or maneuvers are causing legitimate injury; to act.
Antonyms
Derived terms
Translations

Quotations

  • To trick, or cheat someone.
  • (Can we date this quote?), Mark Twain, chapter 23, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:
    House was jammed again that night, and we sold this crowd the same way.

Noun

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  1. An act of selling.
    This is going to be a tough sell.
  2. An easy task.
  3. (colloquial, dated) An imposition, a cheat; a hoax.
    • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, ch. 12
      "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: What a sell for Lena! - Katherine Mansfield, The Doll's House (Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, 354)

See also

Etymology 2

From French selle, from Latin sella.

Alternative forms

Noun

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  1. (obsolete) A seat or stool.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Fairfax to this entry?)
  2. (archaic) A saddle.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.ii:
      turning to that place, in which whyleare / He left his loftie steed with golden sell, / And goodly gorgeous barbes, him found not theare [...].

Etymology 3

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

Noun

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  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".‎

Derived terms

  • bowsell

References

Anagrams

Breton

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /sɛl/

Noun

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  1. look, glance

Pennsylvania German

Etymology

Cognate to German selbig ‎(“the same (one)”).

Pronoun

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  1. that one

Determiner

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  1. that
    • 1954, Albert F. Buffington, A Pennsylvania German grammar, pages 32 and 81:
      sell Haus datt driwwe
      that house over there
      […]
      In sellem alde Glaawe maag en bissel Waahret schtecke.
      In that old belief there may be a bit of truth.
    • For usage examples of this term, see Citations:sell.

Inflection

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

References

  • Earl C Haag, Pennsylvania German Reader and Grammar (2010), page 204

Scots

Etymology

From Old English sellan.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /sɛl/

Verb

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  1. To sell.

Etymology

From Middle English sellen, from Old English sellan ‎(“give", later "give up for money”), from Proto-Germanic *saljaną. Compare Danish sælge, Swedish sälja, Icelandic selja.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /sɛl/
  • Rhymes: -ɛl
  • Homophone: cell

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