sold
/səʊld/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Estuary English[sɒʊ(ɫ)d]
sold is the simple past and past participle of sell.
Meaning of sell
Verb
sell (third-person singular simple present sells, present participle selling, simple past and past participle sold)
- To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.
- She sold her old car very quickly.
- To be sold.
- This old stock will never sell.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- Synonyms:
- sell the pass, sell down the river, sell out, assfuck, betray, burn, cop out, cross out, cross up, double-cross
- 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)
- Then weaues
Adjective
sold (comparative more sold, superlative most sold)
- Convinced, won over.
- I type ‘high cortisol’ into the search bar and keep scrolling. ‘You’re not ugly, you just have cortisol face,’ declares one video. ‘POV you finally drop the cortisol belly,’ reads another. A third screams in caps lock, ‘HOW TO LOWER CORTISOL’. I’m sold. Cortisol is to blame for everything. But how...2026 March 20, Brit Dawson, “‘I went on a cortisol ‘detox’ to tackle my spiralling anxiety — here’s what happened’”, in Cosmopolitan
Noun
sold
- salary; military pay
- But were your will her sold to entertaine1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
- Lying in campe under sold and pay, fighting as souldiers.1601, William Barlow, A Defense of the Articles of the Protestant Religion in answer to a libell lately cast abroad
Forms of sold
| comparative | more sold |
|---|---|
| superlative | most sold |
Origin of sold
From Middle English solde, sould, soud, from Middle French solde, Italian soldo. Compare soldier and Danish sold (via Low German). Doublet of sol, soldo, solid, solidus, sou, and xu.
Words formed from sold
Phrases with sold
- sold on
- sold up
- sold off
- sold out
- long sold
- sold away
- sold down
- panic sold
- sold short
- sold dearly
- sold oneself
- sold bargains
29 more phrasesFewer phrases
- sold the pass
- sold one's ass
- sold the dummy
- sold one's body
- sold one's soul
- sold wolf tickets
- cost of goods sold
- sold by the candle
- costs of goods sold
- sold down the river
- sold ice to Eskimos
- sold like hot cakes
- sold out from under
- sold past the close
- sold salt to a slug
- sold against the box
- sold snow to Eskimos
- sold coal to Newcastle
- sold one's life dearly
- sold the family silver
- sold coals to Newcastle
- sold freezers to Eskimos
- sold one's own grandmother
- sold again and got the money
- sold one's soul to the devil
- sold someone a bill of goods
- going once, going twice, sold
- proverbs should be sold in pairs
- sold one's birthright for a mess of pottage
Words that rhyme with sold
Questions about sold
- What does sold mean?
- Sold means convinced, won over.
- What is sold the simple past and past participle of?
- Sold is the simple past and past participle of sell.
- What part of speech is sold?
- Sold can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce sold?
- Sold is pronounced /səʊld/ (UK).
Words near sold in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sold (page history and authors); sell (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Pvanp7-sold.wav, en-us-sold.ogg.
Cite this entry: “sold.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sold. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
