toll

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a fee levied for the use of roads or bridges, often used for maintenance

   I forgot to keep change in my car for the toll.

2. 2
   verb

   ring slowly

   For whom the bell tolls

3. 3
   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.

   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.

4. 4
   noun

   Loss or damage incurred through a disaster.

   The war has taken its toll on the people.

5. 5
   noun

   A fee paid by the owner of materials or other goods for processing such goods, as under a tolling agreement.

   toll ore refining; toll manufacturing

6. 6
   noun

   A fee for using any kind of material processing service.

   We can handle on a toll basis your needs for spray drying, repackaging, crushing and grinding, and dry blending.

7. 7
   noun

   A tollbooth.

   We will be replacing some manned tolls with high-speed device readers.

8. 8
   verb

   To impose a fee for the use of.

   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…