sale
noun
the act of selling.
sale
American
[seyl]
/ seɪl /
noun
sales
plural
idioms
-
on sale, able to be bought at reduced prices.
-
for sale, offered to be sold; made available to purchasers.
sale
1
British
/ seɪl /
noun
-
the exchange of goods, property, or services for an agreed sum of money or credit
-
the amount sold
-
the opportunity to sell; market
there was no sale for luxuries
-
the rate of selling or being sold
a slow sale of synthetic fabrics
-
-
an event at which goods are sold at reduced prices, usually to clear old stocks
-
( as modifier )
sale bargains
-
-
an auction
Sale
2
British
/ seɪl /
noun
-
a town in NW England, in Trafford unitary authority, Greater Manchester: a residential suburb of Manchester. Pop: 55 234 (2001)
-
a city in SE Australia, in SE Victoria: centre of an agricultural region. Pop: 12 854 (2001)
Salé
3
British
/ sale /
noun
sale
More Idioms
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of sale
First recorded before 1050; Middle English; late Old English sala; cognate with Old Norse, Old High German sala; cf. sell 1
Explanation
A sale is what occurs whenever an object or service is given in return for a payment of money. The sale of your old bike will happen more quickly if you price it at $50 instead of $500. You can talk about the sale of your next door neighbor's house, and you can also describe the house as "for sale," or available to be purchased. When a store has a sale, it means goods temporarily cost less than usual — you can also say that things at that store are "on sale." The word sale comes from the Old English sala, from a Germanic root.
Vocabulary lists containing sale
Century 21 Accounting, 9e, Chapters 1-3
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Spelling Practice, Unit 8
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Countries where clinical trials were held to test the drug -- such as Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Peru -- are excluded from current deals allowing for the sale of generic versions, the NGO pointed out.
From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026
Nearly everything in her apartment is secondhand, from the vintage Audubon prints arranged salon-style in the living room to the Navajo rugs and David Shrigley print she found at a garage sale.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026
Having purchased the home for $2.7 million in 2017, the actor now walks away from the sale with an impressive profit.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
As is customary for Jail Time Records' music, half the profit from the album's sale went to the artists and the rest was reinvested into the label.
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
She said she only moved to Brookline eight years earlier, so she wasn’t living there when Marcus would’ve gone to a tag sale.
From "From the Desk of Zoe Washington" by Janae Marks
Sale revenues dropped 11% to $3.81 billion, while overall revenue came in at 9.6% lower at $3.98 billion, still ahead of analyst estimates for $3.94 billion.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
If he teams up with Jacob Misiorowski or Chris Sale in a five-game divisional round they could face three games against aces.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2026
Storage Sale: Across Silicon Valley, startup founders are enjoying a wave of computing credits and fielding competing offers from AI-model makers racing to land new enterprise customers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
So we were thrilled when they agreed to sit down with Death, Sex & Money host Anna Sale for an interview about fame, parenting, and … bad interviews.
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2026
Brother Leon had “volunteered” Brian Cochran for the position of Treasurer of the Chocolate Sale.
From "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier
When she left the Kenyan team to take over AS Salé in February, she became the first female head coach of a men’s club team in the Arab world.
From Seattle Times ● May 26, 2022
Moskvina’s pair of Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze won narrowly over the Canadians Jamie Salé and David Pelletier in a disputed outcome.
From New York Times ● Feb. 18, 2022
Ms. Cherkaoui, a stylish woman of 41 with dark, short-cropped hair, grew up in Salé, near the capital of Rabat.
From New York Times ● Oct. 8, 2018
The museum’s 17th-century home, the Hôtel Salé, in the historic Marais district, with its garden, courtyard and two-story, sculpture-encrusted entrance hall, has never been ideal for showing art.
From New York Times ● Oct. 27, 2014
At any rate, Carthage founded stable colonies at Melilla, Larache, Salé and Casablanca.
From In Morocco by Wharton, Edith
While the group's sales slumped six percent in the first three months of the year, they edged 0.1 percent higher in the second quarter to 19.5 billion euros.
From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026
Cracker Barrel's shares have struggled because sales are falling and customer traffic is slowing, all while restaurants grapple with soaring costs.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
The group’s key fashion and leather goods division recorded quarterly sales of 8.9 billion euros, up 1% on year, also improving from the 2% decline it logged in the preceding quarter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
And he added that the company operates in an industry niche — prepared deli food — that has a combined $40 billion in U.S. sales.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
Engravings of the Arctic from his upcoming book were previewed in the news media, increasing its soaring advance sales.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
