impose
v.v. to force a rule, tax, or belief on someone. You also use it when you ask for someone's time or help in a way that might be inconvenient for them.
v. to establish or apply by authority; to force the acceptance of something. When used intransitively with 'on' or 'upon', it refers to taking unfair advantage of someone's hospitality or time.
The government plans to impose a new tax on luxury goods.
The school board decided to impose a strict dress code to improve student discipline across the district.
While the central bank may impose higher interest rates to curb inflation, such measures often disproportionately affect small businesses that rely on affordable credit lines for daily operations.
The verb is derived from Late Middle English imposen (“to place, set; to impose (a duty, etc.)”), borrowed from Middle French imposer, and Old French emposer, enposer (“to impose (a duty, tax, etc.)”) (modern French imposer), from im-, em- (variants of en- (prefix meaning ‘in, into’)) + poser (“to place, put”), modelled after: Latin impōnere (“to place or set (something) on; (figurative) to impose (a duty, tax, etc.)”), from im- (variant of in- (prefix meaning ‘on, upon’)) + pōnō (“to place, put; etc.”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European h₂pó, h₂epó (“away; off”) + tḱey- (“to cultivate; to live; to settle”)); and * Latin impositus (“established; put upon, imposed”), the perfect passive participle of impōnō: see above. The noun is derived from the verb.
The verb is transitive when establishing rules or taxes; it is intransitive and takes 'on' or 'upon' when referring to social inconvenience.
The law was imposed to the citizensThe law was imposed on the citizensThe verb 'impose' takes the preposition 'on' or 'upon', not 'to'.