Tariffs
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With all the recent news about tariffs, I wondered where the word came from. So I consulted the OED:
< Italian tariffa ‘arithmetike or casting of accounts’ (Florio), ‘a book of rates for duties’ (Baretti), = Spanish tarifa, Portuguese tarifa, < Arabic taʿrīf notification, explanation, definition, article, < ʿarafa in 1st conj. to notify, make known. So French tarif.
The OED glosses the modern meaning (its Sense 2) as
An official list or schedule setting forth the several customs duties to be imposed on imports and exports; a table or book of rates; any item of such a list, the impost (on any article); also the whole body or system of such duties as established in any country.
The earliest citation for that sense is from 1592.
But interestingly, the word tariff isn't used in the text of the U.S. Constitution — the concept is referenced in longer or more general phrases:
In Section 10: Powers Denied to the States, it says
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 it's 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; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.
And Section 8: Powers of Congress includes
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; […]
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
And the word's one use in the Federalist Papers is in an older and more general sense, as part of the defense of the 3/5 rule in Federalist No. 54,"The Apportionment of Members Among the States"
The federal Constitution, therefore, decides with great propriety on the case of our slaves, when it views them in the mixed character of persons and of property. This is in fact their true character. It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under which they live; and it will not be denied, that these are the proper criterion; because it is only under the pretext that the laws have transformed the negroes into subjects of property, that a place is disputed them in the computation of numbers; and it is admitted, that if the laws were to restore the rights which have been taken away, the negroes could no longer be refused an equal share of representation with the other inhabitants. "This question may be placed in another light. It is agreed on all sides, that numbers are the best scale of wealth and taxation, as they are the only proper scale of representation. Would the convention have been impartial or consistent, if they had rejected the slaves from the list of inhabitants, when the shares of representation were to be calculated, and inserted them on the lists when the tariff of contributions was to be adjusted? Could it be reasonably expected, that the Southern States would concur in a system, which considered their slaves in some degree as men, when burdens were to be imposed, but refused to consider them in the same light, when advantages were to be conferred? Might not some surprise also be expressed, that those who reproach the Southern States with the barbarous policy of considering as property a part of their human brethren, should themselves contend, that the government to which all the States are to be parties, ought to consider this unfortunate race more completely in the unnatural light of property, than the very laws of which they complain?
David Marjanović said,
February 28, 2026 @ 7:48 am
I think the fact that current English has an unanalyzable word for "import duties" has had huge political and economic consequences – and ecological ones (Amazon rainforest being cut down for soy plantations).
J.W. Brewer said,
February 28, 2026 @ 8:26 am
The relevant sense of the Constitution's word "Duties" is preserved in the widely-used compound "duty-free," seen whenever passing through an airport terminal that handles international flights, but I daresay many AmEng speakers (don't know about other Anglophones) couldn't quite explicate what the sense of "duty" that the merchandise is "free" of is.
The google books ngram viewer shows steady decline in use-frequency of "[I/i]mpost(s)" after a peak around 1830, to the extent that it is now IMHO an archaism outside maybe some fixed usages in fields like horse-racing and architecture.
J.W. Brewer said,
February 28, 2026 @ 9:19 am
When the First Congress convened after the Constitution was ratified, the second statute it enacted was what is commonly called in hindsight the Tariff Act of 1789, whose text can be found here: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/historical/congressional/tariff-act-1789.pdf. Note that the word "tariff" appears nowhere in the text, not even in the formal title ("An Act for laying a Duty on Goods, Wares, and Merchandises imported into the United States"). The same appears to be true (although I was less confident of the completeness and accuracy of the online transcription I found) of the controversial Tariff Act of 1828, famously deprecated as the "Tariff of Abominations" by its critics.
This is consistent with the notion that the statute as a whole was a "tariff" in the sense given above of "a book [or table or list] of rates for duties," since most of its wording consists of a long list of individual specifications like "On cheese, per pound, four cents." But "tariff" had perhaps not yet developed the extended sense of a synonym for the individual duties whose rates were specified in such a list.
stephen said,
February 28, 2026 @ 11:21 am
I went to archives.gov and noticed the original has this…
absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws
It’s instead of its.
Mark Liberman said,
February 28, 2026 @ 2:27 pm
@stephen:
See "A soul candidly acknowleging it's fault", 6/9/2004.
David W said,
February 28, 2026 @ 2:54 pm
"Tariff" in the sense of "list of shipping charges" is still in use, and has expanded to include lists of rules and regulations.
https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/customers/publications-tariffs/
CSX tariff #4049 is "Hazmat Rules for Transportation," which lists the rules for transporting hazardous materials.
David Marjanović said,
February 28, 2026 @ 4:23 pm
Should I have rather said "customs"?
J.W. Brewer said,
February 28, 2026 @ 4:35 pm
Well, the compound "customs duty" remains in use by the U.S. authorities. But my claim is that most folks who don't actively do things that require them to pay such duties don't know the jargon, even if they could work out its meaning given sufficient context. The adjective "dutiable" seems even more aggressively jargonlike/obscurantist. https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/know-before-you-visit/customs-duty-information
The thing about "duty-free," also, is that if you buy something at the airport before flying back to your home country you can not only (if you don't exceed some quantity maximum) bring it in to your home country w/o paying the gov't, you can also (often) buy it more cheaply at the airport than you could have elsewhere in the country you are leaving because you are (often) offered a price that doesn't include the VAT or other excise taxes that might have been included if you'd bought it elsewhere before coming to the airport. I wouldn't be surprised if a consumer survey yielded varying theories as to which avoided payment-to-a-government is the "duty" that the "duty-free" merchandise is free of.
CuConnacht said,
February 28, 2026 @ 4:44 pm
The first time I saw the Arabic word ta'arif it was over the meter in a Cairo taxi. I rather foolishly thought that the Arabs had borrowed the English word and done a bit of folk etymology to relate it to the know/make known root.
Neil said,
February 28, 2026 @ 5:44 pm
I note the etymology includes Spanish tarifa. But I thought the Spanish word for tariffs is aranceles. Does anyone know the difference per chance?
JPL said,
February 28, 2026 @ 7:01 pm
Has any reporter ever used the term 'customs duties' in their questions to Donald Trump, or asked him who pays the "customs duties" and when they are paid? I would be interested in seeing how he would respond to such questions.
Anonymous said,
March 1, 2026 @ 3:10 am
In India, they are still usually called "customs duties" or "import duties" (we also have other types of duties, such as "stamp duty" or "excise duty" — the latter replaced these days by "GST" except on a few things), though news coverage of the US often uses "tariffs". Otherwise the word "tariff" is used in the general sense of a list/system of charges or fees, such as a "breakfast-inclusive tariff" at a hotel.
Peter Taylor said,
March 1, 2026 @ 4:01 am
@Neil, it's true that aranceles is the word that the Spanish media use to refer to import duties, whereas tarifa is most commonly heard in Spain in connection with telecoms payment plans (and some telecoms company had an advert not long ago in which a resident of Tarifa, the southernmost Spanish town, complains that people won't shut up about tarifas). However, the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española defines arancel thus:
and lists each as a synonym of the other.
Daniel Deutsch said,
March 1, 2026 @ 11:28 am
In Italy also, tariffa refers commonly to rates, fees, or fares. Tariffa doganale clarifies the usage for a customs tariff.
Yuval said,
March 2, 2026 @ 11:37 am
In Hebrew it's also used quite commonly to just mean "rate". And it's תעריף with the same root as in Arabic, including the glottal ע which never arrives from Indo-European loans, so either it stuck around from more Semitic times or it was borrowed with special care by the late 19th century folks. The sources I found weren't very clear on which one it was.
Yuval said,
March 2, 2026 @ 11:47 am
Ugh. Pharyngeal, not glottal.
I Just did the legwork.
Couldn't find an appearance in pre-modern literature.
It may have been coined by David Yellin in or before 1892 (ref), who was indeed a sophisticated loaner, becoming known by the end of the year (different newspapers, casual use with no explanation).
Chas Belov said,
March 4, 2026 @ 1:57 am
@Neil: Today I noticed on a Muni (San Francisco public transit) poster about paying your transit fare, that "tarifa" is Spanish for fare, as in "Paga su tarifa" (pay your fare).