quota
Americannoun
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quotas
plural
-
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:
The EU will impose an annual quota of 350,000 units in the first year, EU officials said Monday, adding that the amount can increase by 6% in each of the following three years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
If it fails to meet its annual production quota, it will be forced to sell its 49% stake in Miramax, the film company founded by disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
To prevent the studio from fulfilling its annual quota with low-budget or automated content, the deal includes strict guardrails against "AI-generated" films.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
Their experience supports the proposition that renewables can expand without a binding quota.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026
“There’s one more way we can all help, and that’s to buy Liberty Bonds. Montana’s quota of the Third Liberty Loan is three million dollars.”
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
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
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 elimination of import quotas, taxes and other trade restrictions has led to an "avalanche" of imports that have been like a body blow to Kioshi, Fernandez said.
From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026
As a result, the United States rigidly enforced its refugee quotas.
From "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
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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.
