Bestselling

How to spell bestselling

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce bestselling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bestselling mean?

1. adjectiveSelling in very large numbers; more popular or commercially successful than competing products.

Bestselling in a sentence

• Her debut novel became a bestselling title within a month of release.

• The company built its reputation on one bestselling kitchen gadget.

Where does bestselling come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern English compound formed from two native Germanic elements: 'best', the superlative of 'good' going back to Old English 'betst', and 'sell', from Old English 'sellan', which originally meant 'to give' or 'to hand over' before narrowing to the commercial sense of exchanging goods for money. The phrase 'best seller' for a top-selling book grew up in the American publishing trade around the end of the nineteenth century, and the closed adjectival form 'bestselling' followed soon after. The spelling trap is purely structural: writers hesitate over whether to write it as one word, two words, or with a hyphen, and over the double 'l' in 'selling'. The double 'l' is regular, since 'sell' already ends in two 'l's. Although the modern term feels distinctly tied to book charts, both halves of the word are among the oldest in the language.

How the word is built

• best (superlative of good)
• sell (root: to exchange goods for money)
• -ing (adjectival/participial suffix)