Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English - sale

~ n 1 »ACT OF SELLING« the act of giving property, food, or other goods to someone in exchange for money + of  (The use and sale of marijuana remains illegal. | The house sale was completed in two weeks.) make a sale (=sell something)  (Every time Harvey makes a sale he gets $50 commission. | lose a sale (=not sell something that you were going to sell))  (Rather than lose a sale, car salesmen will often bring down the price.) 2 for sale available to be bought  (Excuse me, are these for sale? | There was a "for sale" sign in the yard. | put sth up for sale (=to make something, especially a house, available to be bought))  (Reluctantly, they put the family home up for sale.) 3 »LOWER PRICES« a period of time when shops sell their goods at lower prices than usual  (Marsdon's department store is having a sale this week. | the sales BrE (=when all the shops have a sale) | the January/summer/autumn etc sales)  (I picked up some real bargains in the January sales this year.) 4 »EVENT« an event at which things are sold to the person who offers the highest price; auction1  (a sale of 17th century paintings) 5 sales a) the total number of products that a company sells during a particular period of time  (We grossed more than $500,000 in sales last year. | sales figures/targets etc)  (We've already reached our sales targets for this year.) b) the part of a company that deals with selling products  (She found a job in sales. | a sales manager) 6 sales drive/campaign an effort made by a company to try to increase the number of products it sells 7 sales pitch/talk the things that someone says when they are trying to persuade you to buy something 8 on sale a) available to be bought in a shop  (Stephen King's new novel will go on sale next week.) b) especially AmE available to be bought at a lower price than usual  (I could only afford to buy the CD player because it was on sale.) 9 (on) sale or return if a shop buys something on sale or return, it can return the goods that it is unable to sell  (- see also bill of sale, jumble sale, point of sale)