Definition of "sell"

sell¹

/sɛl/

verb
third-person singular simple present sells, present participle selling, simple past and past participle sold
1. (transitive, ditransitive, intransitive) To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.
  Quotations
  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, […], Matthew 19:21
  No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.
  2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848
2. (ergative) To be sold.
3. (transitive) To promote a product or service.
  Quotations
  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.
5. (transitive) To betray for money or other things.
6. (transitive, slang) To trick, cheat, or manipulate someone.
  Quotations
  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), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Volpone, or The Foxe. A Comœdie. […]”, in The Workes of Ben Jonson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616
  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
  Raul Meireles was the victim of the home side's hustling on this occasion giving the ball away to the impressive David Vaughan who slipped in Taylor-Fletcher. The striker sold Daniel Agger with the best dummy of the night before placing his shot past keeper Pepe Reina.
  2011 January 12, Saj Chowdhury, “Blackpool 2-1 Liverpool”, in BBC
7. (transitive, professional wrestling, slang) To pretend that an opponent's blows or maneuvers are causing legitimate injury; to act.
noun
plural sells
1. An act of selling; sale.
  Quotations
  Now the easiest sell in traveldom is made even easier.
  1963, American Society of Travel Agents, ASTA Travel News, volume 32, page 55
2. (figurative, by extension) The promotion of an idea for acceptance.
3. An easy task.
4. (colloquial, dated) An imposition, a cheat; a hoax; a disappointment; anything occasioning a loss of pride or dignity.
  Quotations
  "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 […]
  What a sell for Lena!
  1922, Katherine Mansfield, The Doll's House (Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, 354)

sell²

/sɛl/

noun
plural sells
1. (obsolete) A seat or stool.
  Quotations
  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] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, stanza 7, page 56
2. (archaic) A saddle.
  Quotations
  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

sell³

/sɛl/

noun
plural sells
1. (regional, obsolete) A rope (usually for tying up cattle, but can also mean any sort of rope).

Definition of "sell"

sell1

verb

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noun

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sell2

noun

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sell3

noun

sell¹

sell²

sell³