Word.ws English Dictionary

sell

/sɛl/

sell verb: to transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.

Verb

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

  1. (ditransitive, intransitive, transitive) 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.
    Synonyms:
    peddle, vend
  2. (ergative) To be sold.
    • This old stock will never sell.
    • The corn sold for a good price.
  3. (transitive) To promote (a product or service) although not being paid in any direct way or at all.
    • 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.2016, “The Fetal Kick Catalyst”, in The Big Bang Theory
  4. (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.
  5. (transitive) To betray for money or other things.
  6. (slang, transitive) To trick, cheat, or manipulate someone.
    • 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.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)
    • House was jammed again that night, and we sold this crowd the same way.1884, Mark Twain, chapter XXIII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  7. (slang, transitive) To pretend that an opponent's blows or maneuvers are causing legitimate injury; to act.
  8. (intransitive, slang) 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.

Noun (1)

sell (plural sells)

  1. An act of selling; sale.
    • Now the easiest sell in traveldom is made even easier.1963, American Society of Travel Agents, ASTA Travel News, volume 32, page 55
  2. (broadly, figuratively) 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.
    • "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."1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 12”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC
    • What a sell for Lena!1922, Katherine Mansfield, The Doll's House (Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, 354)

Noun (2)

sell (plural sells)

  1. (obsolete) A seat or stool.
    • The tyrant proud frown’d from his loftie cell, [...].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]...
  2. (archaic) A saddle.
    • turning to that place, in which whyleare / He left his loftie steed with golden sell, / And goodly gorgeous barbes, him found not theare [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
    • Then she gave unto him a horse so good,
      And therewith a new sell;
      "And never shalt thou the way inquire,
      Thy horse will find it well."1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 169

Noun (3)

sell (plural sells)

  1. (obsolete, regional) 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".

Proper noun capitalized: Sell

Sell (plural Sells)

  1. A surname.

sell meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

sell in Hindi

to agree to transfer goods or provide services for payment
बेचना becnā
to be sold
बिकना biknā

sell in Tamil

to agree to transfer goods or provide services for payment
வில் vil
to be sold
வில் vil

sell in Marathi

to agree to transfer goods or provide services for payment
विकणे vikṇe
to be sold
विकले जाणे vikle jāṇe

sell in Urdu

to agree to transfer goods or provide services for payment
بیچْنا becnā
More languagesFewer languages
sell in Bengali
বেচা beca
sell in Telugu
అమ్ము ammu, విలుచు vilucu
sell in Malayalam
വിൽക്കുക vilkkuka
sell in Kannada
ಬಿಲಿ, ಮಾರು, ಬೆಲೆಗಾಣಿಸು, ಸೀಯು
sell in Punjabi
ਵੇਚਣਾ vecṇā
sell in Gujarati
વેચવું vecvũ
sell in Odia
ବିକିବା bikibā
sell in Sanskrit
ददाति dádāti
sell in Sinhala
විකුණනවා wikuṇanawā
sell in Assamese
বেচ bes, বিক্ৰী কৰ bikri kor, বিকা bika
sell in Nepali
दिनु dinu
sell in Pashto
پلورل plorël
sell in Tagalog
magbili, ipagbili, ibenta
sell in Arabic
بَاعَ bāʕa, اِنْبَاعَ inbāʕa, بِيعَ bīʕa
sell in Malay
menjual
sell in Indonesian
jual, menjual
sell in Thai
ขาย kǎai
sell in Vietnamese
bán
sell in Myanmar
ရောင်း raung:

Examples of sell in a sentence

  • Sorry, I'm not prepared to sell.
  • If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 19:21:

All 40 example sentences with sell

Synonyms of sell

21 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of sell

Forms of sell

Verb
third-person singular presentsells
present participleselling
past participlesold
pastsold
Noun
pluralsells
alternative form (obsolete)selle
Proper noun
pluralSells

Past tense of sell: sold

Plural of sell: sells

Origin of sell

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”).

From French selle, from Latin sella.

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

Words formed from sell

Phrases with sell

27 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with sell

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sell

What does sell mean?
Sell means to transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.
What is sell in Hindi?
Sell in Hindi is बेचना (becnā), बिकना (biknā). See Sell meaning in Hindi.
How do you use sell in a sentence?
Sorry, I'm not prepared to sell.
What part of speech is sell?
Sell can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce sell?
Sell is pronounced /sɛl/.
What is the past tense of sell?
The past tense of sell is sold.

Words near sell in the dictionary

  1. Selkirk's violet
  2. Selkirkshire
  3. Selks
  4. Selkup
  5. Selkups
  6. sell
  7. sell against the box
  8. sell away
  9. sell bargains
  10. sell by the candle
  11. sell coal to Newcastle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sell (page history and authors); Sell (page history and authors); అమ్ము (Telugu) (page history and authors); വിൽക്കുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); sell (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ବିକିବା (Odia) (page history and authors); ददाति (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); दिनु (Nepali) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-sell.ogg.

Cite this entry: “sell.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sell. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.