sell bargains

present singular third person sells bargains · participle present selling bargains · participle past sold bargains · past sold bargains

1. idiomaticobsoleteTo make saucy (usually indiscreet) comments; to come onto.

   Where sold he Bargains, Whip-stitch, kiss my Arse, / Promis'd a Play and dwindled to a Farce?

   1709, J[ohn] Dryden, J[ohn] Oldham, “(please specify the page)”, in Mac Flecknoe: A Poem. […] With Spencer’s Ghost: Being a Satyr Concerning Poetry. […], London: […] H[enry] Hills, […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   No Maid at Court is leſs aſham'd, / Howe'er for ſelling Bargains fam'd, / Than ſhe, to name her Parts behind, / Or when a-bed, to let out Wind.

   1731, [Jonathan Swift], “Strephon and Chloe”, in A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed. […], Dublin; London: […] [William Bowyer] for J. Roberts […], published 1734, →OCLC, page 19

   He […] began to descend to familiar questions, endeavouring to accommodate his discourse to the grossness of rustic understandings. The clowns soon found that he did not know wheat from rye, and began to despise him; one of the boys, by pretending to show him a bird's nest, decoyed him into a ditch; and one of the wenches sold him a bargain.

   1759 August 25, Samuel Johnson, The Idler, number 71

   Synonyms: sell someone a bargain