Auction block
Also called block. a platform from which an auctioneer sells:
the old courthouse where slaves were sold from the auction block.
put on the auction block, to offer for sale at auction; offer to sell to the highest bidder.
Also, put on the block.
Contemporary Examples
Along the Prado they used to sell slaves on the auction block, too.
The Life and Hard Times Of The Family A Cuban Defector Left Behind Brin-Jonathan Butler December 18, 2014
Will CanWest go bankrupt, and if so, what would happen if the New Republic went on the auction block?
The Future of The New Republic Paul Waldman March 5, 2009
From April 18-25 all of the eggs will go on display at Rockefeller Center before a select group hits the auction block.
Franck de las Mercedes Lost Everything in a Fire…Except His Faberge Egg Justin Jones April 7, 2014
Some of the rock-star artists who experienced meteoric rises, helped by manipulations on the auction block, are now in freefall.
Art’s New Price Hype Arne Glimcher May 11, 2009
Both ideas are admirable, and quite possibly necessary to save American democracy from the auction block.
Undo Citizens United? We’d Only Scratch the Surface Jedediah Purdy November 11, 2014
Historical Examples
They have ’em get up on a auction block, and hire a auctioneer, and sell ’em at so much a head, to the crowd.
Sweet Cicely Josiah Allen’s Wife: Marietta Holley
I heerd my mother say they sold slaves on what they called an auction block.
Slave Narratives, Oklahoma Various
Thus the Thirteenth Amendment did not destroy the auction block.
The Disfranchisement of the Negro John L. Love
Several Negroes were standing on a platform called an auction block.
Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance Frances Cavanah
It was a serious sacrifice; but she had been threatened with the auction block, and she well understood what that meant.
The Underground Railroad William Still
Read Also:
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a variety of all fours in which players bid to determine the trump or pitch.
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Also called public sale. a publicly held sale at which property or goods are sold to the highest bidder. Cards. . (in bridge or certain other games) the competitive bidding to fix a contract that a player or players undertake to fulfill. to sell by auction (often followed by off): He auctioned off his furniture. […]
- Auctioneer
a person who conducts sales by . to (something). Contemporary Examples “$450,000,” called the auctioneer, pointing to a bidder in the crowd at Christie’s. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Big Christie’s Auction Brings in $38.8 Million Isabel Wilkinson May 13, 2013 So when Chicago auctioneer Gabe Fajuri first got a cold call from Collins describing the box, he […]