Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To contract to sell more of (a stock or commodity) than can be delivered.
- transitive verb To be too eager or insistent in attempting to sell something to.
- transitive verb To present with excessive or unwarranted enthusiasm; overpraise.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To sell at too high a price.
- To sell more than can he delivered or more than is in existence; to “sell short”: as, to
oversell a stock.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To sell for a higher price than; to exceed in selling price.
- transitive verb Brokers' Cant To sell beyond means of delivery.
- transitive verb (Brokers' Cant) a market in which stocks or commodities have been sold “short” to such an extent that it is difficult to obtain them for delivery.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To
agree tosell more of something than one cansupply . - verb transitive To be too
eager inattempting to sell something. - verb transitive To
praise something toexcess .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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LEVIN: Yes, I mean, I have to tell you, Brooke: so many times when I get wind of a video, or somebody here gets wind of one, a lot of times they - people kind of oversell, and it ` s not as much as what it ` s cracked it up to be.
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HARVEY LEVIN, MANAGING EDITOR, TMZ. COM: So many times when I get wind of a video, or somebody here gets wind of one, a lot of times they - people kind of oversell, and it ` s not as much as what it ` s cracked it up to be.
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I'd like the think that scientists who are well-trained and open-minded will be convinced by the data, so long as I don't, as one person put it, "oversell" the model.
Archive 2005-03-01 2005
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The backpedaling makes me think that the Administration must have also lost confidence in finding WMD's and that the whole thing was a cynical oversell which is now being revised like a movie after a test audience.
hairy and smelly 2003
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- Unlike so many other genre conventions, Creation Entertainment has a strict company policy not to "oversell" our conventions.
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- CONVENTION SEATING & THE CREATION ENTERTAINMENT DIFFERENCE: Unlike so many other genre conventions, Creation Entertainment has a strict company policy not to "oversell" our conventions.
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We will not 'oversell' nor over-claim about our readership.
Eurogamer 2009
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We will not 'oversell' nor over-claim about our readership.
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Alistair Darling warned Gordon Brown not to 'oversell' his G20 summit deal yesterday as he admitted it would not stop unemployment spiralling.
Home | Mail Online 2009
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We will not 'oversell' nor over-claim about our readership.
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