Meanings
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1
noun
a person or company that brings goods or services into a country for sale
The importer buys olive oil in Greece and distributes it to shops across Canada.
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2
noun
a software tool or component that reads data from an external format or system
The photo importer copied the images and converted their metadata.
Thesaurus
Etymology
Formed from import + the agent suffix -er. Import came from Latin importare ("bring in"), combining in- ("into") with portare ("carry"). The computing sense extends the commercial idea of bringing something across a boundary.