Meaning

noun a tax levied on the difference between a commodity's price before taxes and its cost of production

noun a large open vessel for holding or storing liquids

originInherited from Middle English vat, a dialectal variant of fat (“vat, vessel, cask”), from Old English fæt (“vat, vessel”), from Proto-West Germanic *fat, from Proto-Germanic *fatą (“vessel”), from Proto-Indo-European *pod- (“vessel”). Cognate with Scots fat, vat, vautt (“vat, cask, tub”), West Frisian fet, Dutch vat (“barrel, cask, vessel, vat”), German Fass (“barrel, keg, drum, cask, vat”),…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0