sell [OE] An Old English word that originally meant ‘to give, hand over in response to a request’. The longer version of the expression sell your soul, ‘to do absolutely anything to achieve your objective’, is sell your soul to the devil. Over the centuries various people, such as the 16th-century German astronomer and necromancer Faust, reputedly agreed to give their soul to the devil in return for their heart’s desires in this life. This gives us the expression Faustian [L19th] as in Faustian pact. Sale [OE] comes via Old Norse from the same Germanic root as sell. Use of the word for selling goods at a lower price than before dates from the mid 19th century.