Auction

How to spell auction

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce auction

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does auction mean?

1. nounA public sale in which goods are sold to the person who offers the highest bid.
2. verbTo sell something at a public sale to the highest bidder.

Auction in a sentence

• noun

  The antique clock sold for a record price at the auction.

• verb

  The gallery plans to auction the rare paintings next month.

• noun

  She bid on a vintage car at the charity auction.

• verb

  They decided to auction the surplus office furniture online.

Where does auction come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin auctio, in its inflected form auctionem, which literally meant 'an increasing' or 'a growing'. It was built on augere, a verb meaning 'to increase' or 'to make grow', because at such a public sale the bids keep rising until no one will go higher. The same augere root sits behind familiar words like 'augment' and 'auxiliary', all carrying the idea of adding or boosting. English took the word over in the late 1500s, originally describing exactly this rising-price method of selling goods to the highest bidder. Knowing that the heart of the word is auct, the 'increase' element, helps explain the slightly odd 'au' opening and the -tion ending that an unstressed pronunciation tends to blur.

How the word is built

• auct- (from Latin auctus, the past participle of augere: to increase)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)