Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The exchange of goods or services for an amount of money or its equivalent; the act of selling.
  • noun A selling of property to the highest bidder; an auction.
  • noun An offer or arrangement in which goods are sold at a discount.
  • noun The business or activity of selling goods or services.
  • noun The number of items sold or the amount of money received for a number of items sold.
  • idiom (for sale) Available to customers.
  • idiom (on sale) Available to customers.
  • idiom (on sale) Available to customers at a special discount.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Willow; osier; also, a basket-like net.
  • noun The act of selling; also, a specific act or a continuous process of selling; the exchange or disposal of a commodity, right, property, or whatever may be the subject of bargain, for a price agreed on and generally payable in money, as distinguished from barter; the transfer of all right and property in a thing for a price to be paid in money.
  • noun In law, a contract for the transfer of property from one person to another, for a valuable consideration.
  • noun Opportunity to sell; demand; market.
  • noun Disposal by auction or public outcry.
  • noun The price.
  • noun A hall.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete See 1st sallow.
  • noun The act of selling; the transfer of property, or a contract to transfer the ownership of property, from one person to another for a valuable consideration, or for a price in money.
  • noun Opportunity of selling; demand; market.
  • noun Public disposal to the highest bidder, or exposure of goods in market; auction.
  • noun See under Bill.
  • noun to be bought or sold; offered to purchasers; in the market.
  • noun [Obs.] to offer for sale; to put up for purchase; to make merchandise of.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An exchange of goods or services for currency or credit.
  • noun this sense?) A particular opportunity for a sale.
  • noun The sale of goods at reduced prices.
  • noun The act of putting up for auction to the highest bidder.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a particular instance of selling
  • noun the general activity of selling
  • noun an agreement (or contract) in which property is transferred from the seller (vendor) to the buyer (vendee) for a fixed price in money (paid or agreed to be paid by the buyer)
  • noun an occasion (usually brief) for buying at specially reduced prices
  • noun the state of being purchasable; offered or exhibited for selling

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English sala, from Old Norse.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English sale, from Old English sala ("act of selling, sale"), from Old Norse sala ("sale"), from Proto-Germanic *salō (“delivery”), from Proto-Indo-European *sel- (“to grab”).

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Examples

  • A] If it has power to prohibit the sale _without_ the soil, it can prohibit the sale _with_ it; and if it can prohibit the _sale_ as property, it can prohibit the _holding_ as property.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • C] If it has power to prohibit the sale _without_ the soil, it can prohibit the sale _with_ it; and if it can prohibit the _sale_ as property, it can prohibit the _holding_ as property.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • A] If it has power to prohibit the sale _without_ the soil, it can prohibit the sale _with_ it; and if it can prohibit the _sale_ as property, it can prohibit the _holding_ as property.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 American Anti-Slavery Society

  • C] If it has power to prohibit the sale _without_ the soil, it can prohibit the sale _with_ it; and if it can prohibit the _sale_ as property, it can prohibit the _holding_ as property.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 American Anti-Slavery Society

  • A] If it has power to prohibit the sale _without_ the soil, it can prohibit the sale _with_ it; and if it can prohibit the _sale_ as property, it can prohibit the _holding_ as property.

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • Q: Whenever I bring something home from a tag sale my husband starts in with “Where'd you get that goo-gaw?”

    The Language Monitor Con Chapman 2011

  • Walter serendipitously stumbled into the trove of Josiah Freeman's glass plate studio photographs at a tag sale on Nantucket.

    Bernard Starr: Stop Kvetching. Self-Publishing Is Here To Stay -- And Vaulting Ahead Bernard Starr 2011

  • Walter serendipitously stumbled into the trove of Josiah Freeman's glass plate studio photographs at a tag sale on Nantucket.

    Bernard Starr: Stop Kvetching. Self-Publishing Is Here To Stay -- And Vaulting Ahead Bernard Starr 2011

  • To Cliff Notes it, Fitzpatrick's ex-girlfriend told him a neighbor was having a tag sale that included a rather large organ a few years ago.

    Jon Chattman: Fitz & the Tantrums: "Antidote to Autotune" Jon Chattman 2011

  • To Cliff Notes it, Fitzpatrick's ex-girlfriend told him a neighbor was having a tag sale that included a rather large organ a few years ago.

    Jon Chattman: Fitz & the Tantrums: "Antidote to Autotune" Jon Chattman 2011

  • To get a sense of how often yo-yo sales happen, NPR sent a survey to consumer attorneys who work on auto cases. Forty of them responded. Together, those few dozen lawyers said they've gotten calls from nearly 900 car buyers in just the past year who say they felt victimized by a yo-yo car sale. They said that often the terms are worse for the customer under the new deal. And they said that about half the time the dealer tells the customer it's too late to get their trade-in vehicle back.

    Bulky Cameras, Meet The Lens-less FlatCam Chris Arnold 2023

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