toll
Toll, a charge for passage, and toll, to ring a bell slowly, are separate words; the first is an early Germanic borrowing from Latin, the second perhaps a special use of an old verb meaning to draw or lure.[1][2][3]
Pronunciation
- IPA: UK /təʊl/, US /toʊl/[4]
toll1 charge
Etymology
It is inherited from Old English toll (“impost, tribute, passage money”), a variant of toln,[1][2][3] cognate with Old Norse tollr and German Zoll,[1][2] usually considered an early Germanic borrowing of Late Latin tolonium (“custom house”),[2][1][3] from Latin telōnium, from Greek τελώνιον (telṓnion, “tollhouse”), from telṓnēs, tax collector, from télos, tax.[1][2][3] Another theory makes it native Germanic and related to tell, that which is counted.[1]
Earliest recorded meaning
A payment or tax exacted by an authority: about 1000, perhaps 963.[2][5]
Semantic evolution
In Middle English it was a legal term for the right to charge for imports, sales or passage,[1] and in the obsolete phrase sac and soc, toll and team it is recorded from 1017.[5] The miller's share of grain for grinding is from about 1386.[5] A charge for passage along a road or bridge is from the late 15th century.[1][3] Middle English bride-toll was a fee paid to the lord when a bondswoman married outside the manor.[1] On old telephone systems a toll call was one made outside the local area.[1][6] The figurative take its toll, exact a cost, is by 1910,[1] and the number of casualties of a disaster, the death toll, is a related sense.[6]
Timeline
- c. 1000 – a tax.[2]
- c. 1386 – the miller's toll.[5]
- late 15th century – a road toll.[1]
- 1910 – take its toll.[1]
Modern meaning
Noun
- A fixed charge for the right to use a road, bridge or tunnel.
- A charge for a service, such as a long-distance telephone call.
- The loss or damage caused by something, especially the number of people killed: the death toll.
Verb
- To charge a toll for using a road or bridge.
Word family
- tollbooth
- tollgate
- tollhouse
- toll road
toll2 ring
Etymology
It is Middle English tollen, possibly a special use of the earlier tollen, to draw, lure (probably before 1200, in the Ancrene Riwle),[2][1][3] a variant of tillen, from Old English -tyllan in betyllan, to lure, and fortyllan, to draw away, seduce,[2][1][7] words of unknown origin.[2][1]
Earliest recorded meaning
To ring a bell by pulling a rope: 1452.[2][5]
Semantic evolution
Etymonline suggests that the link may be the drawing on the bell rope, or the luring of people to church by the bells.[1] Tolling was used to summon congregations and to announce a death or funeral, and by the late 16th century it had a figurative association with these.[1] The noun, a stroke of a bell, is also from 1452.[2][5] The older sense survived in Middleton and Dekker's a mermaid has tolled my son to shipwreck,[1] and in American dialect to lure game, especially ducks, from 1838.[1][7]
Timeline
Modern meaning
Verb
- To ring a bell slowly and repeatedly, as for a death.
- To announce or summon by tolling.
- (US, Canada) To lure game, especially ducks.
Noun
- The act or sound of tolling a bell.
Related words
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
- ^ a b c d e f Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
- ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins