Word.ws English Dictionary

impost

/ˈɪmpəʊst/US/ˈɪmpoʊst/

impost noun: a tax, tariff or duty that is imposed, especially on merchandise.

Noun (1)

impost (plural imposts)

  1. (historical) A tax, tariff or duty that is imposed, especially on merchandise.
    • ’Tis a Land-tax, vvhich he’s too poor to pay; / You, therefore muſt ſome other Impoſt lay.1667 (revival performance), John Dryden, “Epilogue to the Wild Gallant, as It was First Acted”, in The Wild Gallant: A Comedy. […], In the Savoy [London]: […] T[homas] Newcomb for H[enry] Herringman...
    • […] a duty upon commodities checks itself; and a prince will soon find, that an encrease of the impost is no encrease of his revenue.1752, David Hume, Political Discourses, Edinburgh: A. Kincaid and A. Donaldson, “Of Taxes,” p. 120
  2. (slang) The weight that must be carried by a horse in a race; the handicap.

Noun (2)

impost (plural imposts)

  1. The top part of a column, pillar, pier, wall, etc. that supports an arch.
    • The outer circle [of Stonehenge] has been formed by a combination of two uprights and an impost; yet each combination of these three stones is detached, and without any connection with the rest, except that of coinciding in the form of a circle.1798, William Gilpin, Observations on the Western Parts of England, London: T. Cadell jun. and W. Davies, Section 7, p. 79

impost meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

impost in Tamil

தீர்வைச்சுமை பளு, விற்கம்பத்தொப்பி

impost in Urdu

خراج, محصول

impost in Malayalam

ചുമത്തിയത്, നികുതി, ഇറക്കുമതിത്തീരുവ, ചുങ്കം

impost in Kannada

ತೆರಿಗೆ, ಕುಂದದ ತುದಿ

Examples of impost in a sentence

  • […] before the sequestration of emigrant property, I had remitted the imposts they had ceased to pay;1859, Charles Dickens, chapter 24, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book II (The Golden Thread), page 162:
  • The Ashanti traded with the tribes to the north and with coastal folk to the south, and caravans going in either direction were liable for imposts according to the nature of the goods they carried.1941, Melville J. Herskovits, chapter 3, in The Myth of the Negro Past, New York: Harper, page 68:
  • New universal direct taxes had to be introduced […], while the burden of indirect taxes was also made heavier, with new imposts being levied on an ensemble of items ranging from playing cards to wigs.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 56:

Forms of impost

pluralimposts

Origin of impost

Borrowed from Middle French impost, itself borrowed or adapted from Latin impōsitus, past participle of impōnō (“to impose”).

From Italian imposta, from Latin imposta.

Words that rhyme with impost

12 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about impost

What does impost mean?
Impost means a tax, tariff or duty that is imposed, especially on merchandise.
What is impost in Tamil?
Impost in Tamil is தீர்வைச்சுமை பளு, விற்கம்பத்தொப்பி. See Impost meaning in Tamil.
How do you use impost in a sentence?
[…] before the sequestration of emigrant property, I had remitted the imposts they had ceased to pay;
What part of speech is impost?
Impost is a noun.
How do you pronounce impost?
Impost is pronounced /ˈɪmpəʊst/ (UK).
What is the plural of impost?
The plural of impost is imposts.

Words near impost in the dictionary

  1. impossible trinity
  2. impossibleness
  3. impossibles
  4. impossiblest
  5. impossibly
  6. impost
  7. imposter
  8. imposterhood
  9. imposterous
  10. imposters
  11. impostership

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: impost (page history and authors); impost (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); impost (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); impost (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); impost (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “impost.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/impost. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.