bestseller

American  

[best-sel-er] / ˈbɛstˈsɛl ər /

Or best seller

noun

• bestsellers
  plural

1. a book that is among those having the largest sales during a given period.

2. any product that among those of its kind is selling particularly well at a given time.

   This car was a bestseller last year.

---

bestseller British  

/ ˌbɛstˈsɛlə /

noun

1. a book, record, CD, or other product that has sold in great numbers, esp over a short period

2. the author of one or more such books, etc

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• bestsellerdom
  noun
• best-selling
  adjective
• bestselling
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• bestsellers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of bestseller

An Americanism dating back to 1885–90; best + seller

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bestseller bestsellers

Fun Fact: Alice of Old Vincennes was a bestseller in 1900 and 1901.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026

His original zero-based budgeting message had pillars like “give every dollar a job,” and was outlined in 2017’s “You Need a Budget,” a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026

But when the book, which Frick won in a heated auction, became an instant bestseller, Doyle’s fame reached new heights.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

The UK bestseller lists have a range of titles that sit in the "facts and history" category defined by the research, including:

From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026

How do these three rules help us understand teenage smoking, for example, or the phenomenon of word of mouth, or crime, or the rise of a bestseller?

From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell

Actor and writer Stephen Fry's "The Odyssey" currently tops the history bestsellers on Amazon's UK website.

From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026

Bilton is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, served as special correspondent at Vanity Fair and has worked as a producer and executive producer on several documentaries.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026

But on the bestsellers display at your favorite local indie, it represents the small pleasure of palming a near-pocket-size book in your hands.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 27, 2026

Its Fox News Books imprint, launched in 2020 as a subsidiary of HarperCollins, has published 17 titles, all of which became national bestsellers.

From Salon ● Apr. 18, 2026

They read some popular psychology—Eric Berne’s Games People Play sticks in my mind, because my father still quotes from it—and bestsellers like Leon Uris’s Topaz.

From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove