# sell
## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /sɛl/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Homophones: cel, cell
* Rhymes: -ɛl

### Etymology 1

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.

#### Verb

sell (third-person singular simple present sells, present participle selling, simple past and past participle sold)
* (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.
* (ergative) To be sold.
    This old stock will never sell.
    The corn sold for a good price.
* (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.
* (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.
* (transitive) To betray for money or other things.
* (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.
* (transitive, professional wrestling, slang) To pretend that an opponent's blows or maneuvers are causing legitimate injury; to act.
* (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.

##### Antonyms

* buy

##### Derived terms

* buy low, sell high
* buy when it snows(,/ and) sell when it goes
* cold sell
* cost of goods sold
* cross-sell
* don't sell the skin till you have caught the bear
* hand-sell
* hard-sell
* I have a bridge to sell you
* long sell
* mis-sell
* no-sell
* panic sell
* price to sell
* proverbs should be sold in pairs
* resell
* sell against the box
* sell away
* sell bargains
* sell-by date
* sell by the candle
* sell dearly
* sell down, sell down the river
* sell freezers to Eskimos
* sell ice to Eskimos
* sell in May, …and go away, …and stay away, …then go away
* sell like hot cakes, sell like hotcakes
* sell off, sell-off
* sell on
* sell one's ass
* sell one's birthright for a mess of pottage
* sell one's body
* sell oneself, sell oneself short
* sell one's life dearly
* sell one's own grandmother
* sell one's soul
* sell one's soul to the Devil
* sell one's soul to the devil
* sell order
* sell out from under
* sell out, sell-out
* sell past the close
* sell refrigerators to eskimos
* sell salt to a slug
* sell short
* sell side
* sell snow to Eskimos
* sell someone a bill of goods
* sell someone a pup
* sell-sword
* sell the dummy
* sell the family silver
* sell the pass
* sell-through
* sell up
* sell wolf tickets, …woof tickets
* short sell, short-sell
* sold again and got the money
* upsell
* what wins on Sunday sells on Monday

##### Descendants

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

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

#### Noun

sell (plural sells)
* 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.
* (figurative, by extension) The promotion of an idea for acceptance.
    This is going to be a tough sell.
* An easy task.
* (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!

##### Derived terms

* hard sell
* soft sell
* tough sell

#### See also

* sale

### Etymology 2

From French selle, from Latin sella.

#### Alternative forms

* selle (obsolete)

#### Noun

sell (plural sells)
* (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, [...].
* (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 [...].

### Etymology 3

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

#### Noun

sell (plural sells)
* (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

* The Dictionary of the Scots Language

### Anagrams

* ELLs, Ells, ells

## Breton
### Etymology

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

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /sɛl/

### Noun

sell m
* look, glance

## Chinese
### Etymology

From English sell.

### Pronunciation

* Cantonese (Jyutping): seu$^1$
* Cantonese
** (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)
*** Jyutping: seu$^1$
*** Cantonese Pinyin: seu$^1$
*** Sinological IPA : /sɛːu̯⁵⁵/

### Verb

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

### See also

* sales

### References

* English Loanwords in Hong Kong Cantonese

## Pennsylvania German
### Pronoun

sell
* that one

### Determiner

sell
* neuter nominative/accusative singular of seller: that

#### Declension
## Scots
### Etymology

From Old English sellan.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /sɛl/

### Verb

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