From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsell something ↔ off phrasal verb1 SELLto sell something, especially for a cheap price, because you need the money or because you want to get rid of it After the war, we had to sell off part of the farm. We sell off leftover cakes before we close.2 BBSELLto sell all or part of an industry or company The Leicestershire company has sold off many of its smaller branches to cut debts. → sell→ See Verb tablesell-offˈsell-off noun [countable] 1 BFS British English the sale of an industry that the government owns, to private companies or other people2 American English the sale of a lot of stocks or shares, which makes the price decrease
Examples from the Corpus
sell-off• Unless safeguards are introduced, sell-offs will occur.• With the Treasury market sell-off, buyers saw higher-yielding mortgagebacked bonds as a safe harbor, traders said.• Has any account been taken of the record of those advisers in past sell-offs?• Yesterday, as the sell-off gained momentum, the stock plunged 31 / 4 to close at 281 / 4 on Nasdaq.• With no new junk deals sold yet this year, demand outweighed pressure from the sell-off in Treasurys, traders added.• Would the Minister find it acceptable if the same sort of windfall profits were made by the beneficiaries of the sell-offs?• The sell-offs had a dramatic effect because some of the businesses were loss-makers which dragged down profits last time.From Longman Business Dictionarysell something → off phrasal verb [transitive]COMMERCE to sell all or most of an industry, company, business etc, usually at a low priceHe plans to break the company up and sell it off as several independent businesses.The privatization of state enterprises will be delayed until they can be sold off at a better price. → see also sell-off → sell→ See Verb tablesell-offˈsell-off noun [countable]FINANCE1a situation in which many investors sell their bonds, shares etc, often very quicklyIn an otherwise calm market, there were steep sell-offs in shares.2when a business, company etc is sold to another company6,000 metal union workers occupied two shipbuilding companies to protest at their planned sell-offs. 