Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Something, such as a tax or duty, that is imposed.
- n. Sports The weight a horse must carry in a handicap race.
- n. The uppermost part of a column or pillar supporting an arch.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. That which is imposed or levied; a tax, tribute, or duty; particularly, a duty or tax laid by government on goods imported; a customs-duty. To prevent interference with national commerce by the separate States, the Constitution of the United States (art. I. § 10) provides that “no State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States.”
- n. In architecture, the point where an arch rests on a wall or column; also, the condition of such resting or meeting. In classic architecture the impost is typically marked by a horizontal member; but in medieval work many different forms of imposts are used, and such horizontal members or moldings are frequently absent. Imposts have been classified as continuous imposts (see phrase below); discontinuous imposts, where the arch-moldings abut and are stopped on the pier; shafted imposts, where the arch-moldings spring from a capital and are different from those of the pier; and banded imposts, where the pier and arch have the same moldings.
- n. In sporting slang, a weight placed upon a horse in a handicap race.
Wiktionary
- n. The top part of a column or pillar that supports an arch.
- n. A tax, tariff or duty that is imposed, especially on merchandise.
- n. The top member of a pillar, pier, wall, etc., upon which the weight of an arch rests.
- n. horse racing, slang The weight that must be carried by a horse in a race, the handicap.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. That which is imposed or levied; a tax, tribute, or duty; especially, a duty or tax laid by goverment on goods imported into a country.
- n. (Arch.) The top member of a pillar, pier, wall, etc., upon which the weight of an arch rests.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the lowest stone in an arch -- from which it springs
- n. money collected under a tariff
Etymologies
- From Middle French impost, from Latin impositus, past participle of impōnere ("to impose"). (Wiktionary)
- Obsolete French, from Old French, from Medieval Latin impostum, from Latin, neuter of impostus, variant of impositus, past participle of impōnere, to place upon; see impose.French imposte, from Italian imposta, from Latin, feminine past participle of impōnere, to place upon; see impose. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“By what is called the impost 1692, a duty of five and twenty per cent., of the rate or value, was laid upon all French goods; while the goods of other nations were, the greater part of them, subjected to much lighter duties, seldom exceeding five per cent.”
“While they will rise up against a vexatious impost, they crouch before a system of which the impost is the smallest evil.”
The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV
“But revenue must be had, and the impost is the best source of revenue.”
“So far as tribute was a sign of dependance and inferiority, the impost was a hardship; but for this they who paid it are to be blamed rather than those who received.”
“The impost is the highest weight assignment since Favorite Trick received 128 pounds, after being named the 1997 Horse of the Year.”
“[1] The impost was the duty imposed by Britain on imported tobacco, and the cocket (for which a fee was charged) was the certified document issued that the impost had been paid.”
“(Survey Report 6800 for Adm. 68/195, ff. 76v, Virginia Colonial Records Project, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.) [9] The impost was the duty imposed by Britain on imported tobacco, and the cocket (for which a fee was charged) was the certified document issued that the impost had been paid.”
“[4] The impost was the duty imposed by Britain on imported tobacco.”
Letter from Robert Carter to John Pemberton & Company, August 29, 1729
“(Survey Report 6800 summarizing Adm. 68/194, Virginia Colonial Records Project, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.) [2] The impost was the duty imposed by Britain on imported tobacco, and the cocket (for which a fee was charged) was the certified document issued that the impost had been paid.”
“(Admiralty 68/194, ff. 82r, abstracted in Survey Report 6801, Virginia Colonial Records Project, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.) [4] The impost was the duty imposed by Britain on imported tobacco, and the cocket (for which a fee was charged) was the certified document issued that the impost had been paid.”
Letter from Robert Carter to John Pemberton and Company, June 1, 1728
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘impost’.
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Derby Day!
List of terms one could expect to hear or read in connection with the Kentucky Derby, or high-stakes horse racing in general. This is an open list.
morning line, filly, field, post, favorite, two-year-old, colt, three-year-old, lifetime starts, trained, trainer, owner and 91 more...
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Nothing's Certain But Words and Taxes
agistage, gait, agistment, alcavala, avania, cadastre, calcagium, capitation, carucage, cension, cense-money, cess and 117 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, I
irenic, inimical, ignotism, infrangible, internecine, illumine, ingot, imposter, iconoclast, indefeasible, indefatigable, impingement and 184 more...
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Castles and Keeps
Shamelessly ripped off from this site and others (to be named hereinafter). (Fair warning: for my own edification, I may add definitions/comments from the site, but you might want to just go there ...
abutment, adulterine, allure, angle-spur, apse, arbalest, arbalestier, arbalist, arcade, arch, armoury, arrow slit and 410 more...
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liminal words
transformational, entryway words: thresh(hold), fresh relief
liminal, sill, threshold, aletheia, inscape, adit, introit, maze, pore, porism, portal, port and 114 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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Learned (or Encountered) in Reading
I have a list for words learned from Newsweek; here's where I keep all the stuff from other shit I read.
Except when I'm looking stuff up and find new words that way. Those go on their...cellie, laminectomy, mridangam, terroir, hypospadias, crus, corpora cavernosa, crura, uretheral meatus, bartholin's gland, coloquintida, colopexy and 921 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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the name of the rose
pleasing words I encounter whilst reading umberto eco's novel of the same name.
matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, nones, vespers, compline, usurper, simoniac, heresiarch, malefactor and 230 more...
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Words of the Dying Earth
Tales of the Dying Earth is a 2002 anthology volume featuring four novels by Jack Vance: The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga and Rhialto the Marvellous.
Throughou...deodar, deodand, pelgrane, leucomorph, blister-bush, russet, black burdock, gunmetal, spatterlight, carrack, concertina, terce and 280 more...
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On a Field, Sable, The Letter A, Gules
Words gleaned from my reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter."
prolix, adown, besom, natal, eulogium, coadjutor, cumbrous, slumberous, inditing, anatto, impost, lucubrations and 50 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for impost.
chained_bear "Then as now, all racehorses were assigned a weight, called an impost, to carry in each race. The impost consisted of the jockey, his roughly four and a half pounds of saddle, boots, pants, and silks, and, if necessary, lead pads inserted into the saddle."
—Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend (New York: Ballantine Books, 2001), 65 Oct 20, 2008