sale
noun
Simple meaning
The exchange of goods for money, or a period of lower prices.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
saylIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈseɪl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An exchange of goods or services for currency or credit.
The act of putting up for auction to the highest bidder.
Ellipsis of discount sale ("the sale of goods at reduced prices").
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An exchange of goods or services for currency or credit.
Used this way, sale is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use sale
- “He has just made his first sale.”noun
- “You'll find vitamin C for sale at most pharmacies.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Income (at invoice values) received for goods and services over some given period of time.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The division of a business that is responsible for selling products or services.
The division of a business that is responsible for selling products or services.
An occasion (usually brief) for buying at specially reduced prices.
A finance company that buys (at a discount) the installment sales contracts of retail merchants.
The division of a business that is responsible for selling products or services.
Remuneration offered to a salesperson for exceeding some predetermined sales goal.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.