Teller

How to spell teller

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce teller

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does teller mean?

1. nounA bank employee who receives deposits, cashes cheques, and handles routine customer transactions at a counter.
2. nounA person who relates a story, account, or piece of information.
3. nounAn official appointed to count votes in a parliament, committee, or formal meeting.

Teller in a sentence

• The bank teller counted out the notes and slid them across the counter.

• The festival hired a gifted teller of folk tales to entertain the crowd.

• The teller announced that the motion had passed by twelve votes.

• She worked as a teller for three years before moving into loans.

• As a fortune teller at the fair, she read palms all afternoon.

• Each side appointed a teller to verify the division in the chamber.

Where does teller come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word descends from Old English tellan, meaning 'to count, reckon, or recount', a native Germanic verb closely related to Dutch tellen and German zählen ('to count'). The agent suffix -er was added to form 'one who tells', and for centuries the dominant sense was literally 'one who counts', which is why a bank employee who counts and pays out money is still called a teller. The same numerical root survives in the noun 'tell' meaning a count or tally and in the word 'teller' for the official who tallies votes in a parliament. Over time the verb 'tell' split into two threads, one about counting and one about relating a story, so a teller can also be a narrator who tells tales. That double history (counting versus narrating) is the reason the single spelling covers a bank cashier, a vote counter, and a storyteller alike.

How the word is built

• tell (to count, recount, relate)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)