impost

A tax, tariff or duty that is imposed, especially on merchandise.

Noun 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....
- 1752, David Hume, Political Discourses, Edinburgh: A. Kincaid and A. Donaldson, “Of Taxes,” p. 120, […] a duty upon commodities checks itself; and a prince will soon find, that an encrease of the impost is no encrease...
- […] 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...
The weight that must be carried by a horse in a race; the handicap.

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

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...

From Italian imposta, from Latin imposta.