auction

«auction» in Mova's school dictionary: a public sale where things are sold to the person who… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (an auction, auctions); verb (auction, auctions, auctioned, auctioning — often «auction off»)

meaning for a pupil

1) An auction is a public sale where things are sold to the person who offers the most money. tree →

2) To auction something (or auction it off) is to sell it at an auction. tree →

3) An online auction is one held on a website, where people bid until a set time ends. tree →

sense in the lessons

In maths lessons, auction problems compare bids and find the winning (highest) price or how much more one bid was than another. In everyday life, schools hold charity auctions, and paintings, cars and houses can be sold at auction. The person who runs it is the auctioneer, who says «Going, going, gone!». Phrases: «at auction», «auction off», «charity auction», «going, going, gone».

examples

• The painting was sold at auction. tree →
• Our school held an auction to raise money for the library. tree →
• Dad bid on a bike in an online auction. tree →
• The farm was auctioned off. tree →
• The highest bid wins the auction. tree →
• «Going, going, gone!» shouted the auctioneer. tree →
• At the auction, Ella bid 15 pounds and Tom bid 18; Tom won by 3 pounds. tree →

note

Countable noun; regular verb. In maths problems: the winner pays the highest bid; to find by how much someone won, subtract the second-highest bid. A «bid» is the money someone offers.

In the corpora

• In 2018 one of Banksy's paintings partly shredded itself right after it sold at auction.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «auction» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.