Dictionary.com
definitions
  • synonyms

auction block

noun
  1. Also called block. a platform from which an auctioneer sells: the old courthouse where slaves were sold from the auction block.
Show More
Idioms
  1. put on the auction block, to offer for sale at auction; offer to sell to the highest bidder.Also put on the block.
Show More

Origin of auction block

An Americanism dating back to 1840–50
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for auction block

Historical Examples of auction block

  • Nothing that he could do would be able to save them from the auction-block.

    Slavery and the Constitution

    William Ingersoll Bowditch

  • A slave Kwaque was, as much as if Daughtry had bought him on the auction-block.

  • It was the auction-block horror that first prompted him to seek freedom.

  • My wife and children, dearer to me than my heart's blood, were they made for the auction-block?

  • When the hour arrived, the doomed man was placed on the auction-block.