Sale or sell?
sale is a noun meaning “An exchange of goods or services for currency or credit”; sell is a verb meaning “To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money”. Use sale as a noun and sell as a verb (sell is also a noun: “The promotion of an idea for acceptance”). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) sale is about as common as sell.
What is the difference between sale and sell?
| sale | sell | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | verb, noun |
| Meaning | An exchange of goods or services for currency or credit The act of putting up for auction to the highest bidder | To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money To be sold An act of selling; sale |
| Example | He celebrated after the sale of company | She sold her old car very quickly |
| Forms | sales | sells, selling, sold |
| Pronunciation | /seːl/ /seɪl/ | /sɛl/ |
| In writing | 98 times per million words | 95 times per million words |
Sources: sale and sell in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of sale and sell
sale
- 1
An exchange of goods or services for currency or credit
He celebrated after the sale of company
- 2
Ellipsis of discount sale (“the sale of goods at reduced prices”)
They are having a clearance sale: 50% off
- 3
The act of putting up for auction to the highest bidder
sell
- 1
To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money
She sold her old car very quickly
- 2
An act of selling; sale
- 3
To be sold
This old stock will never sell
- 4
The promotion of an idea for acceptance
This is going to be a tough sell
- 5
To promote (a product or service) although not being paid in any direct way or at all
- 6
An easy task
- 7
To promote (a particular viewpoint)
My boss is very old-fashioned and I'm having a lot of trouble selling the idea of working at home occasionally
- 8
colloquialdatedAn imposition, a cheat; a hoax; a disappointment; anything occasioning a loss of pride or dignity
What a sell for Lena!
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, sale or sell?
sale appears 98 times per million words; sell 95 times per million words.
sale 98 times per million wordssell 95 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search sale vs sell?
“sale vs sell” is searched about 9,900 times a month on Google and 270 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“sell vs sale”, “sale or sell”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.