auction sale
1
3.2
- noun
- /ˈɔːkʃən seɪl/
:
subasta
- The rare painting was sold at a well-attended auction sale for a record price.
Examples
-
Private treaty sales and auction sales are considered alternatives with perfect substitutability by buyers and sellers.
Academic text (2016) -
We're going to have an auction sale.
-
Additional auction sales of stock, farm implements, and household goods added to the average farmers' capital pool.
Academic text (1992) -
An auction sale requires some homework, as with a standard home purchase, but with the auction, you will not have the luxury of backing out if the property doesn't meet certain requirements or has major issues that come up in an inspection.
Blog text (26) -
Last weekend, we attended an auction sale where numerous antiques were up for bidding.
-
The auction sale of the estate drew many interested buyers looking for unique items.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
An act of giving something to someone for money
512
2.8
A public sale where people bid and the highest bidder buys the item
A public sale where people offer money to buy goods
How Competitive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a public sale in which goods are sold to the highest bidder' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'auction' (a public bidding sale) with 'sale' (the act of selling); the phrase is essentially a compositional noun–noun combination with no idiomatic shift. This straightforward, cross-linguistically common construction follows normal English compounding patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Auction sale comes from public events where people bid out loud and the item goes to the 'highest bidder'. In this phrase, auction is the bidding event and sale is the act of selling, so it means a sale where the price rises until someone pays the most.