sold

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of sell.

   The gallery sold three paintings on opening night.

   The house was sold well above the asking price.

   Note

   One irregular form covers both the simple past (they sold the farm) and the participle after have or be (they have sold it; it was sold). Because sell can also be used without an object, there are two ways to report a sale: the house sold in a week, or the house was sold in a week. The first keeps the focus on the house. The second implies someone did the selling.

2. 2
   nounobsolete

   Salary, especially military pay.

   The garrison nearly mutinied when their sold went unpaid for a whole season.

   But were your will her sold to entertaine

   1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

   Note

   A different word from the past tense of sell, though spelled the same. It came through Middle French solde and Italian soldo, and it is a cousin of soldier and a doublet of solid, solidus and sou. Spenser uses it in The Faerie Queene (1590), and William Barlow in 1601 pairs it with its plainer partner: "under sold and pay." It is obsolete, so it belongs in period pastiche, not current prose.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2