Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To establish or apply as compulsory; levy.
- intransitive verb To bring about by authority or force; force to prevail.
- intransitive verb To obtrude or force (oneself, for example) on another or others.
- intransitive verb Printing To arrange (type or plates) on an imposing stone.
- intransitive verb To offer or circulate fraudulently; pass off.
- intransitive verb To force oneself on or take unfair advantage of others.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Command; injunction.
- To lay on, or set on; put, place, or deposit: as, to
impose , the hands in ordination or confirmation. - To lay as a burden, or something to be borne or endured; levy, inflict, or enforce, as by authority, power, or influence: as, to
impose taxes or penalties; to impose one's opinions upon others. - To obtrude fallaciously or deceitfully; palm off; pass off.
- To fix upon; impute.
- To subject by way of punishment.
- In printing, to lay upon an imposing-stone or the bed of a press and secure in a chase, as pages of type or stereotype plates.
- To lay or place a burden or restraint; act with constraining effect: with upon: as, to
impose upon one's patience or hospitality. - To practise misleading trickery or imposture; act with a delusive effect: with upon: as, to
impose upon one with false pretenses.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To lay on; to set or place; to put; to deposit.
- transitive verb To lay as a charge, burden, tax, duty, obligation, command, penalty, etc.; to enjoin; to levy; to inflict.
- transitive verb (Eccl.) To lay on, as the hands, in the religious rites of confirmation and ordination.
- transitive verb (Print.) To arrange in proper order on a table of stone or metal and lock up in a chase for printing; -- said of columns or pages of type, forms, etc.
- intransitive verb To practice tricks or deception.
- intransitive verb to take unfair advantage of (a person, a friendship).
- noun obsolete A command; injunction.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To establish or apply by
authority . - verb intransitive to be an inconvenience
- verb to enforce: compel to behave in a certain way
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb impose something unpleasant
- verb impose and collect
- verb compel to behave in a certain way
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The government will again impose the extraordinary tax on profitable Greek companies in 2011 for earnings derived within the country.
Greece Aims to Cut Deficit to 7% Nick Skrekas 2010
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Instead, the most severe consequence you would impose is that they lose their license?
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He wants to really reduce our dependence on oil entirely, invest in wind and solar and biomass, get away from our dependence on oil, and at the same time in the short term impose a windfall profits tax on the huge profits that oil companies get, and use some of that to help consumers here in the United States.
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Well, we do go about as far as I think we can go in urging companies to make better disclosures and to issue more frequent statements, and in the final analysis the only penalty we can impose is to suspend or delist its shares.
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It looks as if the writer had meant by a short cut to give us both ideas; if so, his guilt is clear; and if we call impose a mere slip in idiom, the confusion is none the less apparent.
Metaphor. 1908
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Certainly, both Italy and Spain need to carry out structural reforms, but these take a long time to show positive effects and in the short-term impose costs.
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a horse, or take the carriage and drive for a week's journey, and, in short, impose upon these good people in every conceivable way.
A girl's life in Virginia before the war, Letitia M Burwell 1895
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Well, technically it would have been a more sensible question during the 2005 General Election campaign, but yes, the question still stands: Why didn’t Britain impose similar restrictions to those used by just about every other old Member State?
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As an uninsured I just hate to have to walk in blind and alone to a hospital to face whatever cost they choose to impose, which is likely higher than for insured folks.
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MAX MOSLEY, PRESIDENT, FIA: The penalty that we've imposed is the harshest one we can impose, which is disqualification.
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