From Latin 'exportare' (to carry out) — adopted two centuries after 'import,' marking when trade balances became central.
To send goods or services to another country for sale; to transfer data out of a system; to spread or introduce an idea or practice to another place.
From Latin 'exportāre' (to carry out, to carry away, to convey abroad), composed of 'ex-' (out of) + 'portāre' (to carry), from PIE *per- (to lead, to pass over, to carry across). The word is the direct lexical mirror of 'import' (to carry in), and the pair were adopted into English together in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as mercantilist economics made the flow of goods across national borders a central political concern. The PIE root *per- is among the most productive in the family, yielding 'port' (a place where goods are
The word 'export' entered English nearly two centuries after 'import,' arriving in the 1610s during the rise of mercantilist economics, which obsessed over trade balances. The time gap reveals a truth about language: you need a word for something only when it becomes a concept. Medieval England cared about what came in; early modern England started measuring what went out.