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:
Amazon, meanwhile, had to pay unusually steep rates by its standards to complete its debt sale, reflecting investors’ newfound caution.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
If you cannot, the Realest is offering this free-to-enter contest: Guess the sale price of the Ohtani cleats and, if you come closest to the actual sale price, you win 1% of the price.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
The loss came after the firm's US-listed shares soared almost 13 percent on their New York debut following a record $26.5 billion share sale.
From Barron's ● Jul. 13, 2026
More shares for sale, plus a potentially more detailed explanation of SpaceX's business and future growth could create further dramatic swings in price.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
She and Baba keep buying them whenever they’re on sale.
From "Zara’s Rules for Record-Breaking Fun" by Hena Khan
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
Back in 2023, Slate’s Anna Sale spoke to couples with vastly different attitudes about how much to spend.
From Slate ● Jul. 10, 2026
Among the hundreds of surgeries performed over three decades by ElAttrache, his patients include the four 2024 MLB most valuable player and Cy Young Award winners — Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Chris Sale and Tarik Skubal.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 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
Liyana and Rafik lettered poster-board signs for the Estate Sale while their mother gathered stacks of yellowed newspapers from the corners, throwing them into recycling bins.
From "Habibi" by Naomi Shihab Nye
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
The Roman dominion ceased at the line drawn between Volubilis and Salé.
From In Morocco by Wharton, Edith
Bankers and investors involved in data-center sales this summer say guaranteed access to electrical power is a major factor in deal valuations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
Networks sales in Europe also declined as modernization projects in some markets were gradually completed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
Bloom’s backlog is about 10x 2025 sales and GE Vernova’s backlog is about 4x 2025 sales.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026
It suffered a steep decline in profits last year – the result of falling sales in key markets, as well as increasing competition from Chinese brands moving into Europe.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
Coke was plunged into crisis, and just a few months later, the company was forced to bring back the original formula as Classic Coke—at which point, sales of New Coke virtually disappeared.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
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.
