Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an act of betrayal or sacrificing of beliefs and principles for money or position.

1862		M.B. Chesnut Diary 6 May in Woodward M. Chesnut’s Civil War (1981) 336: Another sellout to the devil. It is this giving up that kills me .
1883		J. Hay Bread-Winners (1884) 143: How much did the Captain give you for that sell-out?
1890		Advance 1 Feb. 3: The proposed sell-out of the State of North Dakota to the infamous Louisiana Lottery Company [DA].
1906		Watson’s Mag. Jan. 262: The Tariff Act [...] was an ungodly and unblushing sell-out to the Sugar Trust [DA].
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 211: After the sell-out, a bunch of Wops were sent to Ireland to do the collecting, envoys-extraordinary of His Holiness.
1930		(con. 1917) ‘W.W. Windstaff’ ‘A Flier’s War’ in Longstreet Canvas Falcons (1970) 277: It was a war for no reason. We didn’t see much hope of surviving. It was all a bloody sell-out.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 115: The local GOP smelled a sell-out.
1966		C. Stead Cotters’ England (1980) 215: But you sit at table with every ex-I.R.A. sell-out, who’ll hand you a dishful of workman romance.
1971		K. Gilbert Cherry Pickers III i: And where is God Zeena? Why doesn’t He stop the filthy sell-out of humans?
1988		Ice-T ‘Radio Suckers’ 🎵 No sell-outs here, my man.
1999		Indep. Rev. 10 July 6: The Palestinians must raise their voices against this expected sell-out.
2001		N. Barlay Hooky Gear 260: The sure way wha lead to one thing: sellout. Like someone is gonna get sold out. Betrayed.
2022		A. Kirzman Giuliani 268: It was [. . .] a full-blown sellout, in which Giuliani forfeited what remained of his stature for the approval of his patron.

2. a person who betrays someone, or who sacrifices their principles for money.

1959		Economist 11 Apr. 134/2: Specially elected members (reference to whom the wilder parts of the audience had greeted with familiar African cries of ‘stooges’, ‘sell-outs’) .
1969		D. Di Prima Memoirs of a Beatnik 163: Our chief concern was to keep our integrity (much time and energy went into defining the concept of the ‘sellout’).
1984		A. Sayle Train to Hell 103: What a bloody cheek – me a sell-out. I’ve never sold out in my life, honest comrades!
1985		Radio Freedom Nov. in Malan (1991) 297: We have managed to inflict some casualties on the side of the enemy, eliminating sellouts and stooges.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 207: Now he was one of them. There was nothin’ worse than a fuckin’ sell-out.
1995		S. Jacobs Enemy Within 92: They were despised by the conservative whites as sell-outs, ‘kaffi-boeties’.
2000		(ref. to 1970s) C. Glaser Bo-Tsotsi 141: Forker claims that his own prestige was based on his success at rooting out and beating up ‘sell-outs,’ people passing on information to ‘enemy groups’.
2004		Dizzee Rascal ‘Flyin’’ 🎵 Would you call me a sell-out or would you say it’s all good?
2017		Mail & Guardian 1 Sept. 🌐 Zuma called Gordham a ‘liar’ and a ‘sell-out’.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 30: [M]ost of his people considered him ‘a sell-out anyway’.

3. attrib. use of sense 2.

1975		J. Carr Bad (1995) 151: Some of the others started raw-jawin’ about how I was a sell-out bullshitter.
1996		P. Beatty White Boy Shuffle 10: It figures a sell-out Kaufman helped jump-start the American Revolution.
2001		C. Stella Eddie’s World 94: All you are is a sell-out piece of shit with a long string attached to your rap sheet.