Skip to content
ontologydriven
Sign out

Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

sell someone a bill of goods en · VERB

Pronunciation

Meanings

  1. (idiomatic) To deceive or cheat someone.
    • "He showed no knowledge of his subject," McCarran told newsmen. ". . . Someone must have sold him a bill of goods." 1953 June 16, “McCarran Raps Ike Speech at Dartmouth”, in Rome News-Tribune, US, retrieved 21 Jun 2009, page 3:
    • Bill O'Reilly, of the Fox News Channel, has called on the President to admit that the CIA sold him a bill of goods and to fire the agency's director. 2004 February 9, John Cassidy, “Blame Game: Intelligence Services and the Iraq War”, in New Yorker:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
sold someone a bill of goods Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
sold someone a bill of goods Tense=Past lexicographic
sells someone a bill of goods Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres lexicographic
selling someone a bill of goods Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part lexicographic

Synonyms

misinform