In reference to law enforcement agencies:

The idea that officers must aprehend at least a certain number of traffic offenders within a given amount of time (usually monthly). Some police departments use policies utilizing a quota system to rate their officers' effectiveness. Commonly thought to be an antiquated and unfair system, it is still in use in some areas today.

quota is also - on multiuser computer systems - the amount of a given resource that a certain user may employ.
Normally, it is about disk quotas. Quotas are pointless on systems with very few friendly users, and they are absolutely mandatory on systems with many users - especially if some users decide to investigate what happens when a filesystem fills up.
Rational deployment of quotas requires a quota policy.

See also hard quota and soft quota.

Quo"ta (?), n. [LL., fr. L. quota (sc. pars), fr.quotus which or what in number, of what number, how many, fr. quot how many, akin to quis, qui, who: cf. It. quota a share. See Who.]

A proportional part or share; the share or proportion assigned to each in a division.

"Quota of troops and money."

Motley.

 

© Webster 1913.