Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to fool, to hoax.

c.1595		Shakespeare Love’s Labour’s Lost III I: The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that’s flat.
1640		R. Brathwait Boulster Lectures 81: You may suspect mee that I relate these purposely to sell you a bargaine [F&H].
1686		Dorset ‘A Song’ Works of Rochester, Roscommon, Dorset (1720) 57: If a Lord should but whisper his Love in the Crowd, / She’d sell him a Bargain, and laugh out aloud.
1690		Dryden Prologue to the Prophetess in Poems (1948) 253: Then think, on that bare bench my servant sat; / I see him ogle still, and hear him chat; / Selling facetious bargains, And propounding / That witty recreation, called dum-founding.
1727		Pope ‘Of the Art of Sinking in Poetry’ in Works (1824) VII 164: The principal branch of the alamode is the prurient. [...] It consists wholly of metaphors drawn from [...] the very bathos of the human body [...] selling of bargains, and double entendre.
1731		Swift ‘Strephon and Chloe’ in Medley (1749) 112: No maid at court is less asham’d, Howe’er for selling bargains fam’d, Than she, to name her parts behind.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Bargain, a Humbug, to sell a bargain because the buyer seldom gives more than the words‘what for’ or why, ex. the Seller comes into a Room & with a very grave face says that Mr A. the Barber is just taken into Custody . One of the Company perhaps (who is not up to the Rig) very naturally asks ‘what for.’ The answer is ‘for shaving his wife’s **** with a wooden razor’ or perhaps the seller may say, Do you know that they cannot bury Mr Barns who is lately dead. If any person says ‘Why’ the answer is because his ***** stands so that they cannot put on the lid of his coffin. Anopther mode of selling a Bargain consisted in bidding the Buyer Kiss the sellers A—se. This was a species of wit in vogue even at Court in the reign of K. George the first [etc. as 1788].
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: To sell a bargain; a species of wit, much in vogue about the latter end of the reign of Queen Anne, and frequently alluded to by Dean Swift, who says the maids of honour often amused themselves with it. It consisted in the seller naming his or her hinder parts, in answer to the question. What? which the buyer was artfully led to ask. As a specimen, take the following instance: A lady would come into a room full of company, apparently in a fright, crying out, It is white, and follows me! On any of the company asking, What? she sold him the bargain, by saying, Mine a--e.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

(gay) for one man to obtain the services of a boy prostitute at a price and then to offer him to a second man for the actual sex.

1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 40: sell (v.): To procure a boy for a homosexual for a price. (Rare.).

1. (N.Z.) to play a bar game to determine who pays for a round of drinks; one person thinks of, or writes down, a number under ten; the group starts counting down, and the one who hits the chosen number pays; cit. 1939 suggests that there is a kitty but this seems to defeat the object of the game.

1928		Auckland University College Students’ Association Souvenir Programme 16: Another form of gambling [...] is that known as ‘selling a horse’ [DNZE].
1938		R. Hyde Nor the Years Condemn 85: ‘That doesn’t buy our drinks,’ said Sam. Another man said: ‘We’ll sell a horse, and find out who pays.’.
1939		C. Belton Outside the Law 139: The procedure is sometimes referred to as ‘selling a horse’. Each person pools so much money and a number is written down and hidden from view. The person who writes a number down requests one of the others to start counting, commencing at any number desired, provided that it is lower than the winning number. The counting is then carried on in rotation and stops when the written number is reached. The winner then takes the pool and pays for whatever has been purchased [DNZE].

2. (Aus.) as sense 1, in non-bar contexts.

1918

Kia Ora Coo-ee 15 July 5/3: Whether it be to decide who shall get the odd loaf at a ration issue, or anything else, it is the custom of our regiment to ‘sell a horse’.

to deceive, esp. in business or financial transactions; thus the person deceived buys a pup.

1890-1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. & Its Analogues.
1896		‘Army Slang’ in Regiment 11 Apr. 31/2: A fellow who has been bested in a bargain has been ‘sold a dog,’ or ‘pup,’ or ‘done a winger’.
1901		Falkirk Herald (Scot.) 11 May 6/7: There is a poetic phrase in our language, ‘to sell a man a pup’.
1908		Sporting Times 28 Mar. 1/1: You who chose them for our masters / On their specious ‘gup,’ / Ever heard ye of disasters / Such as ‘sold a pup’?
1918		‘Sapper’ Human Touch 28: Which made it all the more distressing that the vendor [...] sold that officer a pup.
1928		V. Palmer Passage 75: He’d laugh, and gammon he thought Reardon was selling me a pup.
1940		A.P. Herbert Let Us be Glum (1941) 1: Joe Goebbels must have sold you one more pup.
1943		Baker ‘Influence of Amer. Sl. on Aus.’ in AS XVIII:4 256: Here is a representative group of Americanisms which have wide currency in Australia: [...] to sell a pup.
1957		J. Braine Room at the Top (1959) 206: I won’t sell you a pup; and I’ll even send business your way.
1960		H.E. Bates When the Green Woods Laugh (1985) 238: Mr Jerebohm was determined not to be sold any pups.
2021		P Howard Braywatch 130: ‘You said you were sold a pup and the players were all shit’.

(US black) to work as a prostitute.

1965

C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 200: She’d sell body, turn tricks and make money.

see ride the buick under buick v.

(orig. US black) lit. and fig. to betray.

1894		‘Mark Twain’ Pudd’nhead Wilson 84: You’s a nigger! [...] en if I opens my mouf ole Marse Driscoll ’ll sell you down de river.
1929		W. Winchell Your Broadway & Mine 16 Mar. [synd. col.] Many of the legit playhouses are to be ‘sold down the river’ to the sound flicker manufacturers.
1935		O.O. McIntyre ‘New York Day by Day’ 31 May [synd. col.] George S. Kaufman [...] has sold himself down the river for five years.
1937		C. Odets Golden Boy III ii: You led him on like Gertie’s whoore! You sold him down the river!
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. 47: sold up the river – betrayed for a consideration.
1942		P. Wylie Generation of Vipers 130: They liked to hear that they had not be beaten, but sold down the river.
1950		‘Hal Ellson’ Tomboy (1952) 40: They’d break it [i.e. a treaty] in a minute and sell us down the river.
1963		G. Lambert Inside Daisy Clover (1966) 172: Then I’ve been sold down the river.
1975		J. Roe The Same Old Grind 47: His little cubbyhole [...] right where he had sold Flame down the river.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 12: The nearest pub [...] was full of CID and a few underworld types who’d put in an appearance to grass their mates, pass the weekly dropsy or sell their mothers down the river.
1989		R.E. Tangney Other Days Around Me 91: It was an invitation to become a squealer, a copper’s nark, to sell Danny down the river.
1991		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper From The Inside 101: As long as there’s a crim to sell down the drain neither he nor any of the Carlton Crew will do a day’s jail.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 272: You think Tony Z would think twice about selling your pert behind down the river?
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 10: That fool [...] think ol’ Shakespeare going to suddenly turn blackleg and sell my kith and kin down the river .

to think very badly of someone.

1592

Nashe Pierce Pennilesse 48: Thou, that in thy Dialogues soldst Hunnyie for a halpenie, and the choysest Writers extant for cues a peece.

(Aus. prison) to prostitute oneself.

1990

Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 ‘To sell one’s crack’, ie to prostitute one’s self to another prisoner.

see separate entries.

to convince, to persuade, to convey enthusiasm.

1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 151: I sold the Western editor [...] on the idea of a two-page spread.
1970		‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 95: Ted the Tailor sold me on it.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 102: Your nephew Rocco has sold you on the niggers and the spics.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] ‘Big ask, mate [...] You’d have to sell Duff and the screws on the idea. Then you’d have to sell the department.

see ride the buick under buick v.

to toss a coin to determine who pays for a round of drinks; thus buy the pony/lady, to pay for that round.

1902

Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Dec. 20/4: After this we ‘sold two ponies.’ The publican won both, and it was not until later on that it dawned upon me that the man next to the publican commenced both times, that the publican put the number down, and that we were 20 in the room.