different between sell vs give

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?l/
• Rhymes: -?l
• Homophone: cell

Etymology 1

From Middle English sellen, from Old English sellan (“give; give up for money”), from Proto-Germanic *saljan?, from Proto-Indo-European *selh?-. Compare Danish sælge, Swedish sälja, Icelandic selja.

Verb

sell (third-person singular simple present sells, present participle selling, simple past and past participle sold)

1. (transitive, intransitive, ditransitive) To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.

   • If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.

2. (ergative) To be sold.

3. To promote a product or service.
   • 2016, "The Fetal Kick Catalyst", The Big Bang Theory

     Howard: You're gonna feel terrible when I'm in a wheelchair. Which, by the way, would fit easily in the back of this award-winning minivan.

     Bernadette: Fine, we'll go to the E.R. Just stop selling me on the van.

     Howard: You're right. It sells itself.

4. To promote a particular viewpoint.

5. To betray for money.
6. (slang) To trick, cheat, or manipulate someone.
   • (Can we find and add a quotation of Charles Dickens to this entry?)
7. (professional wrestling, slang) To pretend that an opponent's blows or maneuvers are causing legitimate injury; to act.

Synonyms

• peddle

Antonyms

• buy

Derived terms

Descendants

• Chinese Pidgin English: sellum, ??
• Sranan Tongo: seri

Translations

Noun

sell (plural sells)

1. An act of selling.

   This is going to be a tough sell.

2. An easy task.
3. (colloquial, dated) An imposition, a cheat; a hoax; a disappointment; anything occasioning a loss of pride or dignity.
   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, ch. 12

     "Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it."

   • 1922, Katherine Mansfield, The Doll's House (Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, 354)

     What a sell for Lena!

See also

• sale

Etymology 2

From French selle, from Latin sella.

Alternative forms

• selle (obsolete)

Noun

sell (plural sells)

1. (obsolete) A seat or stool.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Fairfax to this entry?)

2. (archaic) A saddle.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.ii:

     turning to that place, in which whyleare / He left his loftie steed with golden sell, / And goodly gorgeous barbes, him found not theare [...].

Etymology 3

From Old Saxon seill or Old Norse seil. Cognate with Dutch zeel (“rope”), German Seil (“rope”).

Noun

sell (plural sells)

1. (regional, obsolete) A rope (usually for tying up cattle, but can also mean any sort of rope).

Derived terms

• bowsell

References

• The Dictionary of the Scots Language

Anagrams

• ELLs, Ells, ells

Breton

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?l/

Noun

sell m

1. look, glance

Pennsylvania German

Etymology

Cognate to German selbig (“the same (one)”).

Pronoun

sell

1. that one

Determiner

sell

1. that
   • 1954, Albert F. Buffington, A Pennsylvania German grammar, pages 32 and 81:

     sell Haus datt driwwe

     that house over there

     […]

     In sellem alde Glaawe maag en bissel Waahret schtecke.

     In that old belief there may be a bit of truth.

   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:sell.

Inflection

References

• Earl C Haag, Pennsylvania German Reader and Grammar (2010), page 204

Scots

Etymology

From Old English sellan.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?l/

Verb

sell (third-person singular present sells, present participle sellin, past sellt or sauld, past participle sellt or sauld)

1. To sell.

Westrobothnian

Etymology

From Old Norse sil, a word also recorded in Norway as sel, in Sweden as silder, sälder, standard Swedish sel, from the root of Old Norse seinn and síð.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [sel], [sé??]
  • Rhymes: -el, -é?l

Noun

s?ll n (definite singular sellä, definite plural sella or selja)

1. pool, calm water (occurring in the course of a stream)

   dä sellä gjär ’n mil langt

   The calm water at that place stretches for a mile.

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English given, from Old Norse gefa (“to give”), from Proto-Germanic *geban? (“to give”). Merged with native Middle English yiven, ?even, from Old English ?iefan, from the same Proto-Germanic source (compare the obsolete inherited English doublet yive).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??v/
• Rhymes: -?v

Verb

give (third-person singular simple present gives, present participle giving, simple past gave, past participle given)

1. (ditransitive) To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
   1. To transfer one's possession or holding of (something) to (someone).

   2. To make a present or gift of.

   3. To pledge.

   4. To provide (something) to (someone), to allow or afford.

   5. To cause (a sensation or feeling) to exist in.

   6. To carry out (a physical interaction) with (something).
   7. To pass (something) into (someone's hand, etc.).

   8. To cause (a disease or condition) in, or to transmit (a disease or condition) to.
2. (ditransitive) To estimate or predict (a duration or probability) for (something).

3. (intransitive) To yield slightly when a force is applied.
4. (intransitive) To collapse under pressure or force.

5. (transitive) To provide, as, a service or a broadcast.
   • 2003, Iain Aitken, Value-Driven IT Management: Commercializing the IT Function, page 153

     […] who did not have a culture in which 'giving good presentation' and successfully playing the internal political game was the way up.

   • 2006, Christopher Matthew Spencer The Ebay Entrepreneur, page 248

     A friendly voice on the phone welcoming prospective new clients is a must. Don't underestimate the importance of giving good "phone".

6. (intransitive) To lead (onto or into).

7. (transitive, dated) To provide a view of.

   His window gave the park.

8. To exhibit as a product or result; to produce; to yield.

   The number of men, divided by the number of ships, gives four hundred to each ship.

9. To cause; to make; used with the infinitive.
10. To cause (someone) to have; produce in (someone); effectuate.
11. To allow or admit by way of supposition; to concede.

    He can be bad-tempered, I'll give you that, but he's a hard worker.
12. To attribute; to assign; to adjudge.
13. To communicate or announce (advice, tidings, etc.); to pronounce or utter (an opinion, a judgment, a shout, etc.).

14. (dated) To grant power or permission to; to allow.
15. (reflexive) To devote or apply (oneself).

16. (obsolete) To become soft or moist.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Francis Bacon to this entry?)

17. (obsolete) To shed tears; to weep.
18. (obsolete) To have a misgiving.
    • c. 1608-1634, John Webster, Appius and Virginia, page 16

      My mind gives ye're reserv'd / To rob poor market women.

19. (slang) To be going on, to be occurring

Usage notes

• In older forms of English, when the pronoun thou was in active use, and verbs used -est for distinct second-person singular indicative forms, the verb give had the form givest, and had gavest for its past tense.
• Similarly, when the ending -eth was in active use for third-person singular present indicative forms, the form giveth was used.

Conjugation

Synonyms

• (transfer possession of): See Thesaurus:give
• (bend slightly when a force is applied): bend, cede, flex, move, yield, split
• (estimate or predict): estimate, guess, predict
• (provide):

Antonyms

• (transfer possession of): get, obtain, receive, take
• (bend slightly when a force is applied): not bend/cede/flex/give/move/yield, resist

Derived terms

See also given, giver and giving

Translations

Noun

give (uncountable)

1. The amount of bending that something undergoes when a force is applied to it; a tendency to yield under pressure; resilence.

   This chair doesn't have much give.

   There is no give in his dogmatic religious beliefs.

Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

give (plural gives)

1. Alternative form of gyve

References

• give at OneLook Dictionary Search

Danish

Alternative forms

• gi' (representing the spoken language)

Etymology

From Old Norse gefa, from Proto-Germanic *geban?, cognate with English give and German geben. The Germanic verbs goes back to Proto-Indo-European *g?eb?- (“to give”) (hence Sanskrit ?????? (gábhasti, “arm”)) rather than *g?eh?b?- (“to grab”) (hence Latin habe? (“to have”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [???i?], [???i], (formal) IPA^(key): [???i???]
• Rhymes: -i?, -i?v?

Verb

give (imperative giv, present tense giver, past tense gav, past participle givet, c given, givne)

1. to give

Conjugation

Derived terms

Swedish

Verb

give

1. present subjunctive of giva

Anagrams

• evig