Tariff

//ˈtæɹɪf// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A system of government-imposed duties levied on imported or exported goods; a list of such duties, or the duties themselves.

    "For the sake of this support, the party advocated for agricultural tariffs, for antimargarine laws, and for restrictions on meat importation."

  2. 2
    a government tax on imports or exports wordnet
  3. 3
    A schedule of rates, fees or prices.

    "Under a peak/off-peak electricity tariff, you pay a lower rate for the power when demand is less."

  4. 4
    A sentence determined according to a scale of standard penalties for certain categories of crime. British
Verb
  1. 1
    To levy a duty on (something). transitive

    "From the perspective of foreign producers, it is more difficult to export tariffed goods to the US because US importers have to pay the tariff."

  2. 2
    charge a tariff wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
dutyad valorem dutyadmissionalcohol taxamusement taxassessment

Example

More examples

"The same man who tells you that he does not want to see the government interfere in business—and he means it, and has plenty of good reasons for saying so—is the first to go to Washington and ask the government for a prohibitory tariff on his product."

Etymology

From Italian tariffa (“arithmetical table; list of customs duties”), from Arabic تَعْرِيف (taʕrīf, “notification, explanation”).

Related phrases

non-tariffsocial tarifftariff barrierwhole life tariff

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.