Sell out means to sell all of something, or to be bought up completely: The tickets sold out in an hour. A Sold out sign means there's nothing left, and a concert with no seats available is sold out: The concert is sold out. The second, informal meaning is disapproving: to give up your principles for money.
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tickets/goods + sell out (in + time); sell out of + goods; be sold out
- Tickets for the festival sold out in less than an hour, so we'll watch it online.
- Sorry, we've sold out of the chocolate cake, but there's still some lemon tart.
- Some fans felt the singer had sold out when she started writing songs for adverts.
What changed
First versionWe wanted to see the play, but the tickets had finished.
RevisionWe wanted to see the play, but the tickets had sold out.
Finish can seem to fit, since the tickets are gone. But finish is about something coming to an end in time: a film, a lesson, a working day. When tickets or goods have all been bought, you need sell out, so had finished is replaced with had sold out.
Run out of is similar in meaning but looks at things from a different angle: someone's supply has ended, for whatever reason. We've run out of coffee means there's no coffee left at home; it was simply drunk. Sell out is used when everything has been sold to customers: The bakery sold out of croissants by nine.
Your turn
Tickets for the final ___ in twenty minutes, and thousands of fans were left without seats.
Show the answer
sold out — The tickets were all bought within twenty minutes and fans were left without seats, so sold out. Sold off means sold cheaply to get rid of something: it's used about old stock or property, not tickets for a popular match.
Write about a time you couldn't go to a concert, match or play because the tickets had sold out. Name the event and what you did instead.
Tickets for my favourite band's concert sold out in an hour, so we watched the live stream at home instead.
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