sell the pass

verb

"sell-the-pass" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“sell the pass” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
13
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To betray one's comrades or countrymen; to betray a cause.

Corpus desk

Index EN-sell-the-pass · sell the pass · English

sell the pass · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 13 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for sell the pass
PropertyValue
Headwordsell the pass
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “sell the pass” in English

sell the passranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

sell the pass is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To betray one's comrades or countrymen; to betray a cause.".

Zero misspellings are on record for sell the pass in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is sell the pass, spelled S-E-L-L- -T-H-E- -P-A-S-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    To betray one's comrades or countrymen; to betray a cause.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how sell the pass appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. A respectable divine like Samual Torshell sold the pass when he wrote in 1645 that there was no difference between men and women in the state of grace.
  2. In fact the officials in the Richmond Asylum had pre-empted Sinn Féin. They managed to sell the pass without losing their jobs in the process, unlike Henry Campbell or John Flood.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "sell the pass"?
"sell the pass" is spelled S-E-L-L- -T-H-E- -P-A-S-S.
What does "sell the pass" mean?
As a verb, "sell the pass" means: To betray one's comrades or countrymen; to betray a cause.
What language does "sell the pass" come from?
"sell the pass" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list