noun
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the act, business, or process of importing goods or services
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an imported product or service
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of importation
Explanation
Importation is what happens when goods are purchased from a foreign country to be sold at home. The importation of cars into the U.S. is what makes it possible for you to buy a Honda or a BMW. If two countries have a trade agreement, it means they've worked out a deal for importation and exportation. When lobster is shipped from Maine and sold in China, that's exportation, and when macarons are baked in Paris and sold in New York, that's U.S. importation. The noun importation comes from the verb import, which first meant "convey information" and then "bring in goods from abroad," from the Latin portare, "to carry."
Vocabulary lists containing importation
Vocabulary from The Articles of Confederation
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The 18th Amendment (1919)
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5.4: The Second Industrial Revolution (Sources 1–8)
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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.
Now he is back at his old ways, imposing new duties on the importation of brand-name pharmaceuticals and certain metals.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 15, 2026
Generally, the Food and Drug Administration bans the importation of drugs from abroad, although there is some leeway for medications bought for personal use in quantities of no more than three months’ supply.
From Barron's • Mar. 5, 2026
China has also banned the importation of seafood from Japan and suspended the screening of popular Japanese films.
From BBC • Dec. 8, 2025
While Congress banned slave importation in 1808, it didn’t ban the buying and selling of people.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 30, 2025
Its decline was largely a consequence of the importation of parasitic insects from the Far East and of the establishment of disease organisms fatal to it.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Definitions 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.
