quota
Americannoun
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quotas
plural
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the share or proportional part of a total that is required from, or is due or belongs to, a particular district, state, person, group, etc.
- Synonyms:
- allocation, apportionment, allotment
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a proportional part or share of a fixed total amount or quantity.
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the number or percentage of persons of a specified kind permitted to enroll in a college, join a club, immigrate to a country, etc.
noun
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the proportional share or part of a whole that is due from, due to, or allocated to a person or group
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a prescribed number or quantity, as of items to be manufactured, imported, or exported, immigrants admitted to a country, or students admitted to a college
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of quota
1660–70; < Medieval Latin, short for Latin quota pars how great a part?
Explanation
A quota is a specific number of things. If a quota is placed on the total number of apples each visitor can pick at an orchard, it means that once you've picked a certain number of apples, you have to stop. Usually a quota places an upper limit on the total number or amount of some item. There are quotas placed on all kinds of things, like immigrants entering a country, goods exported, or students admitted to a particular school. Quota comes from the Latin phrase quota pars, or "how large a part".
Vocabulary lists containing quota
Vocabulary from The Articles of Confederation
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Human Geography - Middle School
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Human Geography - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
If Skydance misses its movie quota, it could be forced to sell its 49% stake in Miramax – the studio co-founded by disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
The central bank will increase its relending quota for technological innovation and equipment upgrades by 200 billion yuan to 1.4 trillion yuan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
Fry, 42, said she was "here to fulfil the nerd quota" and was taking the responsibility "extremely seriously".
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
The fuel price hikes and quota cuts have triggered protests and strikes by Iranian truck, taxi and ride-share drivers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
Of course it’s all based on averages—we can go days or even weeks without gleaning—but we must meet our quota before the next conclave.
From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman
Naung Yoe, meanwhile, told the BBC that "these practices are escalating due to increasing difficulties in meeting monthly recruitment quotas and the lucrative financial profits made from recruit trading at the ground level".
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
“With easing ore cost pressure and increased ore quotas, Indonesian production is expected to expand over the remainder of 2026,” says Dhar.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026
From this perspective, production quotas and financial penalties regulate the consequences of consolidation but do not eliminate the underlying market power.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2026
The switch follows the so-called "mackerel war", a long-running dispute between the UK, Iceland, Greenland, Norway, the Faroe Islands, the EU and Russia over shared mackerel catch quotas.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
The sibling category has one of the smaller quotas, which leads to the long wait times.
From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
