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sell

[sel]

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verb (used with object)

to transfer (goods) to or render (services) for another in exchange for money; dispose of to a purchaser for a price: He sold the car to me for $1000.

to deal in; keep or offer for sale: He sells insurance. This store sells my favorite brand.

to make a sale or offer for sale to: He'll sell me the car for $1000.

to persuade or induce (someone) to buy something: The salesman sold me on a more expensive model than I wanted.

to persuade or induce someone to buy (something): The clerk really sold the shoes to me by flattery.

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to make sales of: The hot record sold a million copies this month.

to cause to be accepted, especially generally or widely: to sell an idea to the public.

to cause or persuade to accept; convince: to sell the voters on a candidate.

to accept a price for or make a profit of (something not a proper object for such action): to sell one's soul for political power.

10.

to force or exact a price for: The defenders of the fort sold their lives dearly.

11.

Informal. to cheat, betray, or hoax.

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verb (used without object)

12.

to engage in selling something.

13.

to be on sale.

14.

to offer something for sale: I like this house—will they sell?

15.

to be employed to persuade or induce others to buy, as a salesperson or a clerk in a store: One sister is a cashier and the other sells.

16.

to have a specific price; be offered for sale at the price indicated (followed by at or for): Eggs used to sell at sixty cents a dozen. This shirt sells for thirty dollars.

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17.

to be in demand by buyers: On a rainy day, umbrellas really sell.

18.

to win acceptance, approval, or adoption: Here's an idea that'll sell.

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Sell is one of our favorite verbs.

So is hornswoggle. Does it mean:

to swindle, cheat, hoodwink, or hoax.

to expurgate (a written work) by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or objectionable.

LEARN MORE FUN, UNUSUAL VERBS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

noun

19.

an act or method of selling.

20.

Stock Exchange. a security to be sold.

21.

Informal. a cheat; hoax.

Verb phrases

22.

sell off, to sell, especially at reduced prices, in order to get rid of: The city is selling off a large number of small lots at public auction.

23.

sell out,

to dispose of entirely by selling.

to betray (an associate, one's country, a cause, etc.); turn traitor: He committed suicide rather than sell out to the enemy.

24.

sell up, British. to sell out: She was forced to sell up her entire stock of crystal.

Idioms

25.

sell short. short (def. 49).

26.

sell (someone) a bill of goods. bill of goods (def. 3).

Origin:
before 900; Middle English sellen (v.), Old English sellan orig., to give, hence, give up (someone) to an enemy, betray, exchange for money; cognate with Old Norse selja, Low German sellen, Gothic saljan to give up, sell, orig., to cause to take; akin to Greek heleîn to take

Related forms

sell·a·ble, adjective

Synonyms
1. exchange, vend. See trade.

Antonyms
1. buy.

Example Sentences

The women and children who sell their bodies on the streets are routinely threatened.

So you can sell it yourself and then give them the.

But trading cannot drive prices up in the long term since for every buy, there is a sell.

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The women and children who sell their bodies on the streets are routinely threatened.

So you can sell it yourself and then give them the.

But trading cannot drive prices up in the long term since for every buy, there is a sell.

After burning the plastic sheathing off a tangle of used copper wires, the merchants sell the metal to earn a few pesetas.

Companies want to sell your computer¿s spare processing time.

His plan was to sell quality books for the price of a pack of cigarettes.

Or you could organize a party to make dozens of small potted plants to sell as fund-raisers for schools or garden clubs.

If you're in the market to get one, there's an easy way to sell your current iPhone.

Banks think they can sell insurance more cheaply and conveniently than insurance companies.

Fisk has argued that it must sell the art to cover financial shortfalls.

Only the brave sell at auction, for it is impossible to control who buys or what price they will pay.

Over the years, people have trapped millions to sell as pets.

The claim that ingesting supplements containing antioxidants can influence aging is often used to sell antiaging formulations.

Not long ago, publishing and other media businesses mostly aimed to sell blockbusters.

Grocery stores often sell pimientos preserved in oil, but the fruits are also good.

Burns appropriated the comedy's wittiest one-liners and set up an online store to sell shirts and caps.

No reliable statistics exist on how many doctors sell products such as ephedra, and those who do are breaking no law.

The university press will sell bits of books on its.

Instead, they save it and sell it to itinerant traders called kabari-wallahs who come to call at regular intervals.

Fear not, a wide range of shops and outfitters can rent or sell you anything that's been left behind.

I've never been sure if these companies that sell hacker protection software are not also the cause of the problem as well.

Food commercials have an advantage-if you make the product look mouth-watering, it will sell.

They almost always sell freshly cooked crabs, and they're willing to clean and crack them for no extra charge.

If you sell e-books, you could see this as good news.

The company said it would end a program to sell ads in newspapers because the effort had not been as successful as expected.

Put prices on everything--stuff doesn't sell as quick if the price is a mystery.

Trying to sell additional items too early can endanger the.

Markets may be permanent structures or general areas where people gather to sell goods.

Amiel to sell him into slavery as soon as the schooner arrived in.

These intensely colored diamonds may sell for the highest price per carat of any gem material.

Wild mushroom varieties are available at gourmet markets or at farmers' markets, where foragers often sell their wares.

Securities regulations restrict what executives can say while preparing to sell stock for the first time.

In a slowing economy, allowing grocery stores to sell wine could hurt the little guy.

Third-party vendors sell orientation sessions, curricula for first-year-experience courses, training and support for.

The firm has made it difficult to sell subscriptions on the iPad, and is reluctant to disclose much data on buyers.

Community members sell their handmade colorful threads.

They sell franchises and those franchisees then attempt to sell shares in mythical solar farms.

The tagline helps sell the film to audiences, so great care is taken to shape it.

They also sell a wide variety of herbs and olive oil.

Academic or scholarly books are hard to gauge, but they will sell okay to the right audience.

For private-equity firms that want to sell portfolio companies, there are three big exit routes.

The first is falling victim to poachers who sell its prized horns.

Poachers kill the mothers and then sell their babies as pets.

Congress was impressed, all right, but the public proved a harder sell.

Shop for seed-grown ocotillos at nurseries that sell native plants.

On a large campus, college students tend to sell drugs unless they fear getting caught.

It would have the right to buy out any member wanting to sell his stake.

Frafra women also grow cash crops such as sesame and tobacco, which they sell in local markets.

Street on the belief that experts can consistently time the market and make accurate predictions of when to buy and sell.

The number of coins is finite and they may well sell out before the holiday season.

Special screenings can sell out, but even regular flicks here have perks: stadium seating, caramel corn made in-house.

How can you sell them on your experience and demonstrate that you are a good.

If investors know it is easy to sell their holdings, they will be more willing to buy.

Check out the turducken and all the other stuffed items they sell.

Every successful scientist knows that scientists need to sell themselves to get jobs and win grants.

His image is used to sell peanut butter and cross-country bus trips.

Some nurseries and florists sell tropicals by the stem at this time of year.

The shell game, typically played by companies that sell names of prospective students to for.

It can probably sell many more hybrids, now that it has begun putting such engines into its other models.

Arguing that auction houses know better than to sell artworks of questionable provenance.

All personal details is for our friends and it is free not for facebook to sell.

If it doesn't use up its allowance, it might then sell what it no longer needs.

If your fishmonger doesn't sell sardines already cleaned, it's easy to do yourself.

Both companies say that they do not sell students' information to.

Hedging the price at which you sell your wares is, thanks to forward contracts, fairly straightforward.

However, in schools that sell fruits and vegetables, the students eat more fruits and vegetables overall.

It is easy to sell products once you have a group of true believers.

Most of your neighborhood ice cream vendors peaceably sell frozen treats.

Many markets also sell smoked rainbow trout fillets.

At one point, no lie, somebody tried to hire me to sell vacuum cleaners door to door.

Publishers sell access to large bundles of electronic journals for a price based on what colleges used to pay for paper ones.

The fish then float at the surface of the water, making them easy to catch and sell.

The myth is that streetcars were bought out so auto manufacturers could sell cars.

With the value of ocean-view land soaring, vintage motels are starting to disappear as their owners sell to condo builders.

Nurseries seldom sell these as plants, but you can easily start them.

They will sue you for the balance, put a lien on your property and sell that too.

It is now starting to sell these to the general public.

All three have owners who will educate you in the world of carpets without a hard sell.

And it doesn't rely on fishers only since they can only sell certain sizes.

So to sell as many tickets as possible, the movie studios sent their first-runs to the indoor theaters.

Many botanical gardens sell dried plant materials during the holidays.

If the price rises, you exercise the option and sell at a profit.

Yet persuading these canny, experienced buyers to sell is not for the faint-hearted.

But more organized pirates will hijack freighters, off-load the cargo to sell later, and put the crew out to sea.

The city can even offer a free compost collection service, then turn around and sell the compost to farmers.

My first city job was trying to sell magazine subscriptions over the phone after school.

Most nurseries and garden centers sell seeds and seedlings of common summer vegetables.

The school can sell replicas of a player's jersey, but the player can't.

The second, and more important, kind are guru consultants who sell their own management ideas.

Merchants in towns all over the region sell bear and leopard parts as folk medicine.

Our company is characterized by excellent after sell servel and perfect quality.

Thus, people who own land along the ditches still retain rights to their water until they sell those rights.

For awhile they were content to grow their own native plants and sell them at local farmers markets.

Higher prices mean more incentive to buy and sell used books.

Medals connected to a popular athlete or a piece of sporting history can sell for tens of thousands of pounds.

In other cases the thefts were probably the result of poor local people hoping to find an item they could sell in bazaars.

It is illegal to sell out children and ecosystems for profit.

Other wineries occasionally sell verjus at their tasting rooms.

Outside investors take a great interest whenever managers decide to sell some of their shares directly.

The fishermen often sell their catches for pennies apiece, so many have taken simply to posing for tourists instead.

Importers with the caviar already in stock can still sell it, but they cannot order more.

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Dictionary.com Unabridged

noun, adjective, pronoun Scot.

self.

Link To sell

Collins

World English Dictionary

sell (sɛl)

—vb (foll by on) , sells, selling, sold
1.	to dispose of or transfer or be disposed of or transferred to a purchaser in exchange for money or other consideration; put or be on sale
2.	to deal in (objects, property, etc): he sells used cars for a living
3.	(tr) to give up or surrender for a price or reward: to sell one's honour
4.	to promote or facilitate the sale of (objects, property, etc): publicity sells many products
5.	to induce or gain acceptance of: to sell an idea
6.	(intr) to be in demand on the market: these dresses sell well in the spring
7.	informal (tr) to deceive or cheat
8.	to persuade to accept or approve (of): to sell a buyer on a purchase
9.	informal sell down the river to betray
10.	sell oneself
	a. to convince someone else of one's potential or worth
	b. to give up one's moral or spiritual standards, etc
11.	sell short
	a. informal to disparage or belittle
	b. finance to sell securities or goods without owning them in anticipation of buying them before delivery at a lower price

—n
12.	hard sell Compare soft sell the act or an instance of selling
13.	informal
	a. a trick, hoax, or deception
	b. (Irish) a great disappointment: the service in the hotel was a sell

[Old English sellan to lend, deliver; related to Old Norse selja to sell, Gothic saljan to offer sacrifice, Old High German sellen to sell, Latin cōnsilium advice]

'sellable

—*adj*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

sell

O.E. sellan "to give," from P.Gmc. *saljanan (cf. O.N. selja "to hand over, deliver, sell;" O.Fris. sella, O.H.G. sellen "to give, hand over, sell;" Goth. saljan "to offer a sacrifice"), perhaps a causative form of the root of O.E. sala "sale." One of the first things a student of Old English has to

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learn is that the word that looks like sell usually means "give." Meaning "to give up for money" had emerged by c.1000. An O.E. word for "to sell" was bebycgan, from bycgan "to buy." Slang meaning "to swindle" is from 1597. The noun phrase hard sell is recorded from 1952. To sell one's soul is from c.1570. Sell-by date is from 1972. To sell (someone) down the river is first recorded 1927, but probably from slavery days, on notion of sale from the Upper South to the cotton plantations of the Deep South (attested in this literal sense since 1851). To sell like hot cakes is from 1839.

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American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

sell

In addition to the idioms beginning with sell, also see hard sell; like hot cakes, sell.

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