A cellar is an underground room, often used for storage. A seller is someone who sells things. Think of a cellar as a place and a seller as a person, so "the seller agreed a price" but "the jam is in the cellar".
The core difference
A cellar is an underground storage room, while a seller is a person or business that sells something.
- cellar — an underground room, or a stored collection of wine: They kept jars of preserves in the cellar.
- seller — a person or business that sells, or something that sells well: The seller agreed to lower the asking price.
How to tell them apart
These two sound the same in most accents, so the confusion is almost always a spelling slip. Ask whether you mean a place or a person. A place below ground is a cellar; someone handing over goods for money is a seller.
Memory trick: seller is "sell" plus "-er", just as a baker bakes. Cellar shares its start with "cell", a small enclosed space, which suits a cellar. You will meet the mix-up in property listings and in wine talk, where a wine cellar is a stored collection.
