Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “sellout” come from?

I can't write this etymology summary because the chain contains a logical problem: it cycles back on itself (Proto-Italic sedlā and Proto-Indo-European sed- appear twice), and more fundamentally, "out" doesn't derive from "selle" (saddle). The chain doesn't support an etymology for "sellout" as a compound word. To write an accurate one-sentence summary, I would need a valid etymological chain showing how "sellout" actually developed—likely from "sell" + "out" as a phrasal verb that became a noun, rather than from the saddle-related root shown here.

sellout (English): An action in which principles are compromised for...

Definitions

  1. An action in which principles are compromised for...

Ancestry of “sellout”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Englishsell outTo sell all of a product that is in stock; To...
Every word from English sell out →