sell out

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

1. To sell all of a supply or stock of something.

   They sold out of concert posters yesterday and won't get another shipment until next week.

   2 more examples

   Like when Rosario and I have a really on day, I mean, we could sell this place out of beer, you know.

   1977 August 27, Steve Savage, Susan "Suki" Eagan, “Everything You Wanted to Know About Suki, But Were Too Distracted In Chaps to Ask Her”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 8, page 8

   By the end of July [2020], Brompton Road station was available as a virtual tour and tickets were selling out fast.

   2021 March 24, Stefanie Foster, “Hidden London: Old Tube on YouTube”, in RAIL, number 927, page 41

   Synonyms: run out, stock out

2. intransitiveTo abandon or betray one's principles to seek profit or other personal advantage; to abandon or betray one's supporters through this change.

   He used to be a voice for the underdog until he sold out.

   5 more examples

   It used to be a pleasant little community, until the leaders sold out to the developers.

   It's like tellin' Gwen Stefani she sold out / ‘Cause I was tryna leave no doubt

   2013, “Asshole”, in The Marshall Mathers LP 2, performed by Eminem

   […] Lelaina is also attempting to choose between two men who represent her divergent prospects: to sell out or not to sell out. That particular quandary was styled as a hallmark of Generation X, and Reality Bites was perhaps the most polished of a bunch of mainstream attempts to portray the ambivalent cohort.

   2019 March 6, Soraya Roberts, “Reality Bites Captured Gen X With Perfect Irony”, in The Atlantic

   The nineties were not an age for the aspirant. The worst thing you could be was a sellout, and not because selling out involved money. Selling out meant you needed to be popular, and any explicit desire for approval was enough to prove you were terrible.

   2022, Chuck Klosterman, The Nineties, New York: Penguin Press, →ISBN

   But the recent writer and actor strikes in the US show that selling out is not just a question of personal ethics, but an industry-wide concern. A director’s decision to align themselves with these Goliaths of entertainment has consequences; makes money for the big guy, in opposition to fostering an industry where smaller films and creators have more opportunities.

   2023 July 19, Caspar Salmon, “Has Barbie killed the indie director? Why credible film-makers are selling out”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

3. transitiveTo betray (a person), usually a close friend or family member, for personal gain.

   I'll kill him if I see him again; he sold me out.

   Synonyms: sell, sell the pass, sell down the river, assfuck, betray, burn, cop out, cross out

4. To sell one's business (with a connotative emphasis on entirety and finality).

   The owners long resisted buyout offers, but when they were ready to retire, they finally sold out to a competitor.

   1. figurativelyTo commit or abandon oneself entirely (to a cause, a team, etc.).
5. historicalgovernmentTo sell one's commission.

   After the peace of Versailles he resided in England; but, about three years before the breaking out of the Revolution, he sold out his commission in the army and emigrated to New York.

   1857, Washington Irving, Life of George Washington, volume 2, page 267

6. ambitransitivedatedbusinessTo liquidate, sell off, or divest oneself of financial investments, stocks, or government funds.

   '[…] I might have been very unfortunate indeed; for the stocks were at that time so low, that if I had not happened to have the necessary sum in my banker's hands, I must have sold out to very great loss. […]'

   1811, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume II, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC

7. archaicintransitiveTo hurry out.