Also:
Go like hot cakes
Move like hot cakes
Meaning of Idiom ‘Sell Like Hot Cakes’
To sell like hot cakes means to sell quickly and in large quantities; to be quite commercially successful. 1Ammer, Christine. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. ,2Heacock, Paul. Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010.,3Ayto, John. Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms. Oxford: Oxford U, 2010.
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Usage
Although sell like hotcakes is the principal and most widely used idiom, other words for sell, such as go and move, above, are possible.
Examples Of Use
“My new eBook is selling like hot cakes. I just wish I could offer it in print.”
“Trust me. There will come a day when electric cars are selling like hot cakes.”
“We only make this particular candy once a year and it always goes like hot cakes.”
“The new models are moving like hotcakes,” said the car salesman.
Origin
Used since the mid-1800s.
Hot cake (or hotcake) is another word for pancake or griddle cake, an item which tends to sell quickly and in large numbers wherever they are offered. 4Ammer, Christine. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.
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