to auction off
24
3.5
- phrasal verb
- /ˈɔːkʃən ɔf/
:
subastar
- This car was supposed to be auctioned off at their charity drive tomorrow.
Stay tuned, yo, we might even have a few items to auction off that are spooky.
- Stay tuned, yo, we might even have a few items to auction off that are spooky.
- And then the creditors auction off the goods and the buyer of the goods does whatever the buyer wants to do with the goods.
- It's like a bar mitzvah but instead of poorly reading a Torah portion, you're getting auctioned off to be wed losers.
Examples
-
So the auctioneers would be sent in to auction off everything in my lab.
-
Now Ingrid has died, and the farm and everything in it are being auctioned off.
Academic text (1995) -
We're gonna have to auction off everything.
-
Would he have to auction off his collection, even sell his home?
Fiction book (2002) -
We'll auction off part of the herd.
-
All of your things will be auctioned off with the property.
-
In step three, the government auctions off the right to receive compensation for the education reform project.
Academic text (2005) -
We held an estate sale and auctioned off most of her belongings.
Fiction book (1993) -
Phillips memorabilia will be auctioned off on December 1, 2012, to the highest bidders.
Blog text (18) -
To pay off debt, the bankruptcy trustee auctioned off the property in 2005.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
To give something to someone for money
57
3.5
To quickly get rid of things by offering them at low prices
53
3.6
To sell something at a public sale where people bid and the highest bidder buys it
18
3.5
Offer something for sale at an auction
1
6.7
To sell something to the person who offers the most money at a public sale
Offer something for sale at an auction
To offer something for sale, often at an auction
How Competitive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The core meaning is already carried by 'auction' (to sell to the highest bidder), and the particle 'off' simply adds a sense of disposing or finalising the sale rather than creating an idiomatic shift. This verb + particle combination follows productive compositional patterns in English and would be predictable to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
Auction off comes from the picture of a public sale where people make higher and higher offers until one person wins. Here auction means the sale and off shows the seller getting rid of the thing, so to auction off something is 'to sell it to the highest bidder'.