Word.ws English Dictionary

sell like hot cakes

sell like hot cakes verb: to be sold quickly in large numbers or amounts.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To be sold quickly in large numbers or amounts.
    • During a power outage, candles sell like hot cakes.
    • You're living in a disco / Forget about the rat race / Let's do the Milkshake / Selling like a hotcake1979, Robin Scott, “Pop Muzik”

sell like hot cakes meaning in Kannada, Thai and Vietnamese

sell like hot cakes in Kannada

ಬಿಸಿ ದೋಸೆಗಳಂತೆ ಮಾರಾಟವಾಗುವ

sell like hot cakes in Thai

sell quickly
เทน้ำเทท่า tee-náam-tee-tâa, ขายดิบขายดี kǎai-dìp-kǎai-dii

sell like hot cakes in Vietnamese

sell quickly
bán chạy như tôm tươi

Forms of sell like hot cakes

third-person singular presentsells like hot cakes
present participleselling like hot cakes
past participlesold like hot cakes
pastsold like hot cakes

Origin of sell like hot cakes

After the proverbial popularity of pancakes in 19th-century America.

Words formed from sell like hot cakes

Questions about sell like hot cakes

What does sell like hot cakes mean?
Sell like hot cakes means to be sold quickly in large numbers or amounts.
What is sell like hot cakes in Kannada?
Sell like hot cakes in Kannada is ಬಿಸಿ ದೋಸೆಗಳಂತೆ ಮಾರಾಟವಾಗುವ. See Sell like hot cakes meaning in Kannada.
What part of speech is sell like hot cakes?
Sell like hot cakes is a verb.
What is the past tense of sell like hot cakes?
The past tense of sell like hot cakes is sold like hot cakes.

Words near sell like hot cakes in the dictionary

  1. sell in May and go away
  2. sell in May and stay away
  3. sell in May then go away
  4. sell in May, then go away
  5. sell in May, then stay away
  6. sell like hot cakes
  7. sell my clothes, I'm going to heaven
  8. sell off
  9. sell on
  10. sell one's ass
  11. sell one's birthright for a mess of pottage

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sell like hot cakes (page history and authors); sell like hot cakes (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-sell like hot cakes.ogg.

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