Definition
1. (Verb) To bring goods, merchandise, or other articles into a country from a foreign country or jurisdiction. The act of importation is complete when foreign goods enter domestic territory, typically upon crossing the customs boundary. In constitutional and statutory contexts, the verb encompasses not only the physical transportation of goods but also the legal and commercial transactions that accompany that movement.
2. (Noun) An article or commodity brought into a country from abroad. More commonly used in the plural — imports — to describe the class of goods brought into a country through foreign commerce. Opposed to export.
3. (Secondary legal sense) To carry or signify a meaning; to imply. A document, statute, or instrument may be said to "import" a particular meaning when that meaning is fairly carried by its language. Courts have used this sense when construing whether a written instrument imports a legal obligation, condition, or right.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To bring something in from a foreign country, especially for sale or trade; also, to load a file into a software application from another version or system.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To bring in from abroad; to introduce from without, especially goods and merchandise from a foreign country in commercial transactions; also, to carry or include as meaning or intention; to imply or signify.
The commercial sense of import in ordinary language and its primary legal sense are nearly identical. The gap worth noting for legal research lies in the secondary meaning: the legal use of "import" to mean "to signify" or "to carry a legal meaning" — as in "this instrument imports a promise" — has no counterpart in modern common usage and can cause confusion when reading older legal texts, where both senses appear in close proximity.
Common Confusion
The commercial and semantic senses of "import" operate independently in legal texts, but older judicial opinions and treatises frequently deploy both without distinction. A court discussing what a contract "imports" is not discussing trade goods — it is characterizing the legal meaning or effect the document carries on its face. Researchers reading historical opinions should identify which sense is in play before treating the passage as authority on either trade law or contract interpretation.
Why It Matters in Research
The constitutional dimension is the dominant concern for researchers working with American legal sources. The Import-Export Clause of Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution — referenced directly in Anderson's entry — restricts state authority to lay duties on imports or exports without congressional consent. This clause generated a substantial body of federal case law defining what qualifies as an "import" for constitutional purposes, and the historical definition used by courts does not always track the common commercial meaning. Researchers should treat "import" in constitutional contexts as a term of art requiring attention to that specific line of authority.
For researchers working in trade law, customs law, or tariff history, the noun form (imports/import) appears across an enormous range of statutory and regulatory material. The scope of what counts as an "import" — whether it includes intangibles, digital goods, re-imports of domestically produced goods, or goods in transit — has shifted with legislative changes and treaty obligations. Early tariff statutes and customs regulations use the term in ways that may not map cleanly onto modern trade law definitions.
The secondary semantic sense — "to import" meaning "to signify" — appears most heavily in equity pleading, contract construction, and statutory interpretation materials from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is largely archaic in modern legal writing but remains common in primary sources from that period. Burrill's entry focuses exclusively on the commercial/goods meaning and does not address the semantic sense at all, meaning that a researcher relying solely on historical dictionaries may be underprepared for this usage in older case law.
Jurisdictional variation in the law of imports is primarily federal in the United States: importation is a matter of federal customs and commerce authority, and state-level variation is constitutionally constrained. Researchers working in comparative or international contexts should note that the definition of "import" for purposes of WTO agreements, bilateral trade treaties, and domestic implementing legislation may each carry distinct technical meanings.
Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson and Burrill converge on the noun form: an import is a thing brought into a country from another country. Both treat the plural — imports — as the more natural form. Anderson adds constitutional context by quoting the Import-Export Clause directly, grounding the term in federal structural law from the outset. Burrill's entry is brief and purely descriptive, pointing readers to the fuller plural form without elaboration.
Neither historical dictionary addresses the semantic sense of "import" (to signify or imply), which is a meaningful omission given how frequently that usage appears in equity and contract cases from the same era. Neither source addresses the definition's constitutional boundaries — what goods or transactions actually qualify as imports for Clause purposes — leaving researchers to find that content in case law rather than lexicographic sources.
Webster's 1913 is more complete than either legal dictionary on the semantic sense, explicitly noting the "to imply; to signify" meaning with illustration. This is one instance where a general dictionary offers more complete coverage of a legally relevant meaning than the contemporary legal dictionaries do.
Jurisdictional Note
In the United States, the regulation of imports is a federal matter under the Commerce Clause and the Import-Export Clause. States are constitutionally constrained from imposing duties on imports, though the precise line between a prohibited import duty and a permissible state tax has been the subject of recurring federal litigation. Researchers working outside U.S. federal law should verify whether the applicable jurisdiction uses "import" as a defined term of art in relevant statutes or treaties.