sales

American

[saylz] / seɪlz /

noun

plural of sale.

adjective

of, relating to, or engaged in sales.

sales records for the month of January; a sales department.

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."

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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:

sales

Citing anonymous sources "with knowledge of the matter", the paper says the instructions to the data centre partners "have been communicated verbally and conveyed by Nvidia's sales teams rather than spelt out in documents".

From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2026

Analysts polled by FactSet had expected sales of $13.1 billion.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 3, 2026

However, the company’s pace of growth actually slowed on a sequential basis, with sales up 47% compared with the second quarter of 2026.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 3, 2026