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Comment by elgertam | Hacker News Reader

> Some Japanese utilities have introduced tariffs designed to encourage daytime water heating as growing volumes of solar generation enter the grid. [Emphasis added.]

I was quite confused at the use of "tariff" here, as it meant to me a "tax on a good crossing a political boundary." Turns out, 'tariff' has an older meaning: a published schedule of fees or taxes issued by some authority.

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I've read that the word is borrowed from Arabic, meaning notification, and I think at first it was price notifications and then people started using it to mean that the prices were bound to some schedule or condition.

For example in Turkish, "tarife" means only that: Conditional / Schedule-based pricing, and according to Sevan Nişanyan (a language researcher), Turkish borrowed it from Italian, where it was being used similarly. Import tariffs are a completely different word.

It apparently came to English through Italian -> Spanish -> French.

So I'm not a native English speaker but as far as I understand, import tariffs are just one kind of tariff.

ps. I just f'ing love Etymology.

Big fan of Etymology as well, mostly because my brain seemingly needs to understand the origin/history of terms to feel like I've fully grasped concepts.

From French, tarif, a table showing the amounts of payable fees, or a list of prices set for certain goods or services (1572), via Spanish tarifa, from Arabic ta'arifa, meaning notification, coming from 'arrifa, to let know.

In italian "Import tariff" is "Dazio".

I'm sure you're aware of this website, but just in case anyone else wants to delve into etymology, the site etymonline.com is free and fantastic.

https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=tariff

Spoiler: the word is originally from Arabic :)

I use a Turkish site from Sevan Nişanyan: https://www.nisanyansozluk.com/kelime/tarife

Also gives the same information. BTW the dude is a legend, I had lessons from him in university, he could speak like 12 languages or something.

US utilities also have Tariffs. It’s the statement of how the utility operates and charges users for service. Anytime a utility needs to adjust costs/rates, they need to file a Rate Case with the public utility commissions, and resulting in changes to the Tariff.

It's an arab loan word for ~"price list" (originally strongly suggesting an import-duty-like meaning).

The same word exists in e.g. German or Italian, but mostly just means "pricing scheme" there, like in the article ("import duty" using a different expression in those languages).

Might be a mostly/somewhat "false friend" for a German (pv magazine is german).

Tarif/Tarife means price list of anything. Your barber, restaurant, taxi service, hospital can have one. tariff as in the meaning of custom tax is a very narrow meaning considering the usage of the word in general (but that's OK).

Import duty is "gümrük vergisi", and the general list of this is "gümrük vergisi tarifesi" in broad sense. It also has a more technical name here but both I don't remember it, and it doesn't matter in this context.

In the Japan's context we would call it "elektrik fiyat tarifesi", or "elektrik tarifesi" for short, for example.

Cheers,

Your friendly Turkish HN user.

My electricity contract in the Netherlands here is on a "Dynamisch tarief", with the most direct translation being "Dynamic tariff". It means I pay/get a different price for my power every 15 minutes.

"Tarief" just means price of mainly a service.

I think 'dynamic rate' is the proper translation for the US?

In the UK you can get agile tarrifs now where the price changes through the day according to demand and supply predictions. There's an API you can use to control chargers, heaters, bitcoin miners etc.

"Tariff" is often the formal word used in the US to refer to utility rates for electricity, gas, water, etc.

We have solar feed-in tariffs in Australia. It’s something like 4-8c per kWh, depending on the region, supplier, and time of use.

I've seen 'tariff' used a fair amount here in the UK on price lists (taxi etc)

Same in Portugal: a "tarifa" can mean a price charged for a rendered service or a tax on imported products.

Likewise, many years ago, I got confused by less common meanings of the word "schedule". The most common meaning is a written or explicit arrangement of how a person or machine spends their time, particular for future planning.

The less common uses show up in examples like "Schedule I drugs" (highly banned) or various schedules in tax laws, appendices of long documents, etc.

Schedule is a note, it goes back to the Latin word for the strips of plant used to make papyrus sheets; so it's one of the strips and by analogy a written note small enough to fit on such a sheet.

Schedules are common in UK legislation as addenda to the main clauses/provisions. Most wouldn't fit in a papyrus strip though!

The Japanese word used in the context of price lists would be something like 料金表 or 料金メニュー.

When I see "tariff", my mind only thinks of 関税 , and I was just as confused as you were. Turns out its just an item in a price schedule.

It’s confusingly super common in the US for that usage when talking about trucking and shipping. Where of course the other kind of tariffs are also common.

It is used to mean a schedule of fees. Its a common usage in the UK and some other countries.

It’s the word I have always seen utilities use in the US.

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