sell.
To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.
Meaning & usage
To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.
She sold her old car very quickly.
I'll sell you three books for a hundred dollars.
To be sold.
This old stock will never sell.
The corn sold for a good price.
To promote (a product or service) although not being paid in any direct way or at all.
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.
To betray for money or other things.
To trick, cheat, or manipulate someone.
To pretend that an opponent's blows or maneuvers are causing legitimate injury; to act.
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.
Where this word comes from
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-. Cognates Cognate with Scots sell (“to sell”), Danish sælge (“to sell”), Norwegian Bokmål selge (“to sell”), Norwegian Nynorsk selja, selje (“to sell”), Swedish sälja (“to sell”), Faroese and Icelandic selja (“to sell”), Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌻𐌾𐌰𐌽 (saljan, “to pay tribute, make an offer”).
An act of selling; sale.
The promotion of an idea for acceptance.
This is going to be a tough sell.
An easy task.
An imposition, a cheat; a hoax; a disappointment; anything occasioning a loss of pride or dignity.
Where this word comes from
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-. Cognates Cognate with Scots sell (“to sell”), Danish sælge (“to sell”), Norwegian Bokmål selge (“to sell”), Norwegian Nynorsk selja, selje (“to sell”), Swedish sälja (“to sell”), Faroese and Icelandic selja (“to sell”), Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌻𐌾𐌰𐌽 (saljan, “to pay tribute, make an offer”).
A seat or stool.
A saddle.
Where this word comes from
From French selle, from Latin sella.
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".
Where this word comes from
From Old Saxon seill or Old Norse seil. Cognate with Dutch zeel (“rope”), German Seil (“rope”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.