white sale
1
3.2
- noun
- /waɪt seɪl/
- US
:
venta de ropa blanca
- Every January, department stores host a white sale with reduced prices on bedding and other linen products.
Examples
-
There's a big white sale going on... at Towel World!
-
During the March sale and the white sale at the end of the novel, we clearly see this frenzy at work.
Academic text (1991) -
Many retailers run special white sales throughout January, offering discounts on bed sheets, towels, and tablecloths.
-
During the summer, there is often a white sale at local stores featuring great deals on household linens.
Synonyms
476
1.0
A time when shops offer goods at lower prices
4
2.1
A sale when a shop sells many items at low prices to make room for new stock
Surface Forms
Morphology
Although the parts 'white' and 'sale' are literal, the conventional meaning — a promotion specifically for household linens (historically white items) — is culturally specific and not directly inferable just from knowing the constituent words. A B1 learner might guess a sale involving white-colored goods but would not reliably predict the narrower meaning 'linens', so the expression shows a partial but not full compositionality.
Etymology
White sale The noun white sale comes from old stores that sold bed sheets and towels. They held a special sale of mostly white linens, so people called it a white sale, and today it still means a special sale on 'household linens'.