What does Customs mean?

Definitions for Customs
cus·toms

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word Customs.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. customs, customs duty, custom, impostnoun

    money collected under a tariff

GCIDE

  1. customsnoun

    the government department administering the collection of import tariffs. Used with as singular verb.

  2. customsnoun

    that area within an airport, sea port, or other border station where freight or the baggage of travellers is checked for dutiable materials or contraband; as, it took an hour to get through customs.

Wiktionary

  1. customsnoun

    The duties or taxes imposed on imported or exported goods.

    We had to pay customs of u00A3200 on all the wine we took back from France.

  2. customsnoun

    () The government department or agency that is authorised to collect the taxes imposed on imported goods.

    We got pulled over by customs on our way back from France - we only had 200 bottles of wine - it was so unfair.

Wikipedia

  1. Customs

    Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs has been considered as the fiscal subject that charges customs duties (i.e. tariffs) and other taxes on import and export. In recent decades, the views on the functions of customs have considerably expanded and now covers three basic issues: taxation, security, and trade facilitation.Each country has its own laws and regulations for the import and export of goods into and out of a country, enforced by their respective customs authorities; the import/export of some goods may be restricted or forbidden entirely. A wide range of penalties are faced by those who break these laws.

ChatGPT

  1. customs

    Customs are established practices or patterns of behavior that are typical or expected within a particular community, society, or culture. They can also refer to the government agency responsible for controlling and collecting duties and taxes on imported and exported goods.

Wikidata

  1. Customs

    Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country. Depending on local legislation and regulations, the import or export of some goods may be restricted or forbidden, and the customs agency enforces these rules. The customs authority may be different from the immigration authority, which monitors persons who leave or enter the country, checking for appropriate documentation, apprehending people wanted by international arrest warrants, and impeding the entry of others deemed dangerous to the country. In most countries customs are attained through government agreements and international laws. A customs duty is a tariff or tax on the importation or exportation of goods. In the Kingdom of England, customs duties were typically part of the customary revenue of the king, and therefore did not need parliamentary consent to be levied, unlike excise duty, land tax, or other forms of taxes. Commercial goods not yet cleared through customs are held in a customs area, often called a bonded store, until processed. All authorised ports are recognised customs area.

Suggested Resources

  1. customs

    The customs symbol -- In this Symbols.com article you will learn about the meaning of the customs symbol and its characteristic.

Matched Categories

British National Corpus

  1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'Customs' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #4032

Usage in printed sourcesFrom: 

How to pronounce Customs?

How to say Customs in sign language?

Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of Customs in Chaldean Numerology is: 3

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of Customs in Pythagorean Numerology is: 2

Examples of Customs in a Sentence

  1. Paul Drechsler:

    There is a risk that the auto industry in the UK faces extinction if there's no customs union after Brexit.

  2. August Pfluger:

    We are seeing a cut in CBP specific funding, we have a $6 trillion proposal from the president, and every single agent I talk to, whether its Border Patrol, ICE, customs, is saying help, they’re asking me for help and technology, their morale is down, they're not able to do their jobs because the priorities have not been issued.

  3. Christopher Cardozo:

    The work is being used actively by Native people to help them rediscover who they are, what their language was, what their customs and rituals were, in many cases, the descendants of people who Curtis photographed have no photographs of them. If you think of what conditions were like in 1900, even if they were given photographs -- which often happened -- they've been lost or destroyed. I am finding that the Native people, overwhelmingly, really appreciate what Curtis and their ancestors did together.

  4. Ron Johnson:

    As sympathetic as I am toward anyone who yearns for the freedom and opportunity that Central America provides, it is not possible to properly accommodate all who do. Those who enter our country illegally without a valid asylum claim, put themselves and our society at risk, the goal of our policies should be to reduce the overwhelming flow of illegal migration and convert it to a controllable number of legal immigrants. Hopefully, Operation Safe Return will convince Central Americans, that on a bipartisan basis, Central America will do everything we can to prevent human traffickers from exploiting our laws and abusing immigrants seeking a better life, Central Americans said. The Trump administration ANNOUNCES MAJOR CRACKDOWN ON ASYLUM SEEKERS The bipartisan push comes amid a continuing crisis on the southern border, with tens of thousands of migrants being encountered and apprehended at the border each month. The Trump administration has focused The Trump administration efforts on trying to end loopholes in which family units who meet the initial credible fear test are released into the U.S. as cases are processed. This week, The Trump administration announced a policy that requires most migrants entering through Central America southern border to first seek asylum in one of the countries they traversed whether in Mexico, in Central America, or elsewhere on their journey. The Democrats meanwhile have focused more on the humanitarian aspect of the crisis, and have been extremely critical of the conditions in detention facilities, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement( ICE) operations in the homeland. Kyrsten Sinema told The Arizona Republic that the idea was in response to a meeting with administration and White House officials who Kyrsten Sinema said were focused on changing asylum laws and challenging the 1997 Flores agreement that set standards for treatment of migrants and how long minors can be held in custody.

  5. Sheriff Will Snyder:

    Some of these people had (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detainers;some of them had warrants from other places. Wehad to work through legitimately getting them out of jail.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

Customs#1#5609#10000

Translations for Customs

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"Customs." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 17 Mar. 2025. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/Customs>.

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