• IPA: /sɛl/

From Middle English sellen, from Old English sellan, from Proto-West Germanic *salljan, from Proto-Germanic *saljaną, from Proto-Indo-European *selh₁-.

sell (sells, present participle selling; simple past and past participle sold)

1. (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.

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.
   • 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.

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. (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.

7. (transitive, professional wrestling, slang) To pretend that an opponent's blows or maneuvers are causing legitimate injury; to act.
8. (AU, 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.

• buy

• French: vendre
• German: verkaufen, vertreiben
• Italian: vendere
• Portuguese: vender
• Russian: продава́ть
• Spanish: vender

• French: vendre
• German: sich verkaufen
• Italian: vendersi
• Russian: продава́ться
• Spanish: venderse, salir

• German: verkaufen
• Spanish: intentar, buscar

• German: beschwindeln, beschummeln
• Italian: circuire

• Spanish: actuar, fingir

sell (plural sells)

1. An act of selling; sale.
2. (figurative, by extension) 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.
   • 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!

From French selle, from Latin sella.

sell (plural sells)

1. (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, [...].

2. (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 [...].

From Old Saxon seill or Old Norse seil.

sell (plural sells)

1. (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".

1. Surname.