toll
[tʰo(ʊ̯)ɫ]
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.08 in modern English
4
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A fee paid for some liberty or privilege, particularly for the privilege of passing over a bridge or on a highway, or for that of vending goods in a fair, market, etc.
noun
A fee paid by the owner of materials or other goods for processing such goods, as under a tolling agreement.
Example Sentences
- "Meanwhile, the tolls dispute had gone to the courts, and the E.L.R. was completely successful when, in 1856, the House of Lords awarded it the sum of £30,000 against the L.Y.R. for tolls overcharged."
- "The war has taken its toll on the people."
- "toll ore refining; toll manufacturing"
- "We can handle on a toll basis your needs for spray drying, repackaging, crushing and grinding, and dry blending."
- "We will be replacing some manned tolls with high-speed device readers."
- "Once more it is proposed to toll the East River bridges."
Etymology
From Middle English toll, tol, tolle, from Old English toll m or n and toln f (“toll, duty, custom”), from Proto-West Germanic *toll, *tolnu, from Proto-Germanic *tullaz, *tullō (“that which is counted or told, reckoning”), from Proto-Indo-European *del- (“calculation, fraud”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Tol (“toll”), Dutch tol (“toll”), German Zoll (“toll, duty, customs”), Danish told (“toll, duty, tariff”), Swedish tull (“toll, customs”), Icelandic tollur (“toll, customs”). More at tell, tale. Alternate etymology derives Old English toll from Medieval Latin tolōneum, tolōnium, alteration (due to the Germanic forms above) of Latin telōneum, from Ancient Greek τελώνιον (telṓnion, “toll-house”), from τέλος (télos, “tax”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: [tʰo(ʊ̯)ɫ]
- British English: [t(ʰ)əʊ̯ɫ]
Usage
- American usage
- British usage
- Obsolete
- Transitive verb