upset price
- noun
- UK
:
precio de reserva
- Before the auction started, the seller announced that the upset price would be $500.
Examples
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The art piece had an upset price of $1,000, ensuring it wouldn't sell for less at the auction.
-
Bidders were excited to see that the upset price for the vintage car was set at a reasonable amount.
-
The auctioneer may fix an upset price, and from time to time, may fix the amount of rises in bid.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense of "upset" known to a B1 learner (e.g. surprise, defeat, or emotional disturbance) does not provide a basis for inferring "minimum price at which a seller will accept bids"; the phrase is a specialized auction/legal term rather than a transparent composition. Cross-linguistically and even within English auction jargon the concept is expressed as a technical 'reserve' price, so learners who know the individual words would not reliably derive this meaning.
Etymology
The term upset price may come from the idea of a price that is set up before an auction. Imagine the seller putting a small sign on an item to show the lowest amount they will accept, so bidders know the limit. So, upset price means the 'minimum price' the seller will accept.
