What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Sell vs Fix - What's the difference?

sell | fix |

As a verb sell

is (intransitive) to transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.

As a noun sell

is an act of selling or sell can be (obsolete) a seat or stool.

As an abbreviation fix is

(clotting factor ix).

sell

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) sellen, from (etyl) , Icelandic selja.

Verb

  • (intransitive) To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.
  • * Bible, (w) xix. 21
  • If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= A new prescription , passage=No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.}}
  • (ergative) To be sold.
  • To promote a particular viewpoint.
  • (slang) To trick, cheat, or manipulate someone.
  • * (Charles Dickens)
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=January 12, author=Saj Chowdhury, work=BBC
  • , title= Liverpool 2-1 Liverpool , passage=Raul Meireles was the victim of the home side's hustling on this occasion giving the ball away to the impressive David Vaughan who slipped in Taylor-Fletcher. The striker sold Daniel Agger with the best dummy of the night before placing his shot past keeper Pepe Reina.}}
  • (professional wrestling, slang) To pretend that an opponent's blows or maneuvers are causing legitimate injury; to act.
  • Antonyms
    * buy
    Derived terms
    * sell-by date * sell-out * sell-outs * sell-through * sell down * sell down the river * sell ice to Eskimos * sell like hotcakes * sell one's soul * sell out * sell refrigerators to Eskimos * sell wolf tickets

    Quotations

    * To trick, or cheat someone. *

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An act of selling.
  • This is going to be a tough sell .
  • An easy task.
  • * 1922': What a '''sell for Lena! - (Katherine Mansfield), ''The Doll's House (Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, 354)
  • (colloquial, dated) An imposition, a cheat; a hoax.
  • * 1919 ,
  • "Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it."

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) selle, from (etyl) sella.

    Alternative forms

    * selle (obsolete)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A seat or stool.
  • (Fairfax)
  • (archaic) A saddle.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.ii:
  • turning to that place, in which whyleare / He left his loftie steed with golden sell , / And goodly gorgeous barbes, him found not theare [...].

    fix

    English

    Alternative forms

    * fixe (archaic)

    Noun

    (es)
  • A repair or corrective action.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)
  • , volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […].  Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. […]  But the scandals kept coming, […]. A broad section of the political class now recognises the need for change but remains unable to see the necessity of a fundamental overhaul. Instead it offers fixes and patches.}}
  • A difficult situation; a quandary or dilemma.
  • (informal) A single dose of an addictive drug administered to a drug user.
  • * (Alain Jourgensen)
  • "Just one fix !"
  • A prearrangement of the outcome of a supposedly competitive process, such as a sporting event, a game, an election, a trial, or a bid.
  • *
  • A determination of location.
  • (US) fettlings (mixture used to line a furnace)
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    Verb

  • (obsolete) To pierce; now generally replaced by transfix.
  • # (by extension) (Of a piercing look) to direct at someone.
  • He fixed me with a sickly grin, and said, "I told you it wouldn't work!"
  • To attach; to affix; to hold in place.
  • A dab of chewing gum will fix your note to the bulletin board.
    A leech can fix itself to your skin without you feeling it.
  • # (transitive, figuratively, usually in the passive) To focus or determine (oneself, on a concept); to fixate.
  • She's fixed on the idea of becoming a doctor.
  • To mend, to repair.
  • That heater will start a fire if you don't fix it.
  • (informal) To prepare (food).
  • She fixed dinner for the kids.
  • To make (a contest, vote, or gamble) unfair; to privilege one contestant or a particular group of contestants, usually before the contest begins; to arrange immunity for defendants by tampering with the justice system via bribery or extortionSutherland, Edwin H. (ed) (1937): The Professional Thief: by a Professional Thief. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Reprinted by various publishers in subsequent decades.]
  • A majority of voters believed the election was fixed in favor of the incumbent.
  • (transitive, US, informal) To surgically render an animal, especially a pet, infertile.
  • Rover stopped digging under the fence after we had the vet fix him.
  • (transitive, mathematics, sematics) To map a (point or subset) to itself.
  • (informal) To take revenge on, to best; to serve justice on an assumed miscreant.
  • He got caught breaking into lockers, so a couple of guys fixed him after work.
  • To render (a photographic impression) permanent by treating with such applications as will make it insensitive to the action of light.
  • (transitive, chemistry, biology) To convert into a stable or available form.
  • Legumes are valued in crop rotation for their ability to fix nitrogen.
    (Abney)
  • To become fixed; to settle or remain permanently; to cease from wandering; to rest.
  • * (rfdate) (Waller)
  • Your kindness banishes your fear, / Resolved to fix forever here.
  • To become firm, so as to resist volatilization; to cease to flow or be fluid; to congeal; to become hard and malleable, as a metallic substance.
  • (Francis Bacon)

    Synonyms

    * (make a contest unfair) doctor, rig * (render infertile) neuter, spay, desex, castrate * See also

    Antonyms

    * (to hold in place) move, change

    Derived terms

    * affix, affixative, fixed * fixings, fixity, fixety * fix someone's wagon, fix someone up with