Toll

How to spell toll

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce toll

What does toll mean?

1. nounA fee charged for the use of a road, bridge, or tunnel.
2. nounThe amount of loss, suffering, or damage caused by something, especially in lives.
3. verbTo ring a bell slowly and repeatedly, often to mark a death or a solemn occasion.

Toll in a sentence

• noun

  The motorway toll doubled during peak hours.

• noun

  The long shifts took a heavy toll on her health.

• verb

  The church bells toll at noon to mark the funeral.

• noun

  Drivers pay a small toll to cross the bridge.

• noun

  The flooding caused a rising death toll across the region.

• verb

  Visitors heard the great bell toll across the valley at dusk.

Where does toll come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Toll comes from the Old English word toll, also written tol, meaning a tax, duty, or payment for a right or privilege. That word was drawn from the late Latin tolonium, a customs house or place where duties were collected, which in turn traces back to the Greek telos, meaning a tax or charge as well as an end or completion. The early English sense was firmly financial: money owed for using a road, crossing a bridge, or selling goods at a market. The verb meaning 'to ring a bell slowly' is a separate development that grew in the Middle English period, probably from a sense of 'to pull' or 'draw', and it later attached to the solemn ringing announcing a death. From that funeral use English gained the figurative 'death toll', the count of lives lost, which now feels closely tied to the older money sense of a price that must be paid.

How the word is built

• toll (single Old English root meaning a tax or payment; no separable prefix or suffix)