- plural of sale.
sales
Americannoun
adjective
Etymology
Origin of sales
First recorded in 1820–30, for the adjective
Explanation
When a company’s sales are down, it hasn’t been making money. The word sales refers to income. If a bathing suit company’s sales are low, it should stop making wool bikinis. Sales is also the plural of “sale.” If a jewelry maker is worried about sales during the year's slow months, he might offer a discount. And when a big company focuses too much on sales, they sometimes lose track of the other aspects of doing business. Stores have big sales. The job or activity of selling things is also known as sales, so you could have a sales job, or even a title like "Director of Sales" or "sales representative."
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.
The directors took £14m from the firm, which employed hundreds of sales staff at a Bournemouth call centre.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
These networks are trying to help brands get discovered in a retail world where 80% to 85% of sales still happen in-store, according to Brian Leder, president of media agency Ramp97, who attended the event.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
Nvidia has started reporting its data-center sales in two parts, separating the large cloud providers from everyone else.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 3, 2026
Between them, Aston Villa and Newcastle completed five deals worth £40m or more, but only after they brought in hundreds of millions of pounds from player sales.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
Zalmay waved at him distractedly while talking with the sales assistant about the superiority of Myst over Civilization.
From "Shooting Kabul" by N. H. Senzai
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.
