sale
noun
the act of selling.
sale
American
[sayl]
/ 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:
The team hasn’t announced where their home games in the series will be played, and tickets for the games in Atlanta have yet to go on sale.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026
The latest purchase was made by Miami real estate investor Ron Firman in a private sale through Hunt Auctions.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
That all never happened and now it’s not for sale.
From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2026
Should the couple manage to secure a buyer at or near their full asking price, the sale would mark an enormous increase from the $29.8 million they shelled out for the property in 2010.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 12, 2026
Nothing for sale in the market except from the farmers, and it’s too early in the season for there to be much of that.
From "The Light in Hidden Places" by Sharon Cameron
They hit two home runs off Braves ace Chris Sale and forced him to hand the ball over after five innings in Game 3.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2026
Superstar Shohei Ohtani is batting fifth in the lineup against Braves ace Chris Sale in Game 3 of the National League Division Series.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026
Next, the series heads to Atlanta for two games, with Braves All-Star Chris Sale set to start Game 3 against Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2026
But Weiss did not know, immediately after Saturday’s loss, when he’d be able to deploy his sole ace, 37-year-old Chris Sale, the 10-time All-Star who just pitched in the Braves’ Game 3 wild-card closeout.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026
We rolled past the neat square of grass with its bright white bandstand, its perverted pulpit, and right on by the For Sale sign planted in front of the Kites’.
From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx
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 English emissaries appear to have been much struck by the magnificence of his palaces, then in all the splendor of novelty, and gleaming with marbles brought from Volubilis and Salé.
From In Morocco by Edith Wharton
At first glance, it is surprising that sales of such household products are thriving on social shopping channels.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026
Global ticket sales for “Digger” were only $35.3 million.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026
Still, the group’s mainstay fashion division, home to heavyweight brands Louis Vuitton and Dior, booked a 5% drop in sales on year to €8.245 billion, below analysts’ forecasts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026
Pending home sales declined 4% from a month earlier in September, the biggest monthly drop in more than three years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026
Angelos, a twenty-four-year-old record producer, possessed a weapon—which he did not use or threaten to use—at the time of the sales.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
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.
