Etymology

toll

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Today it means: 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. Full definition →

Middle English toll ← Old English toll m or n ← Proto-West Germanic *toll
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toll · noun, verb1

  1. Ancient Greek · derived fromτελώνιον“toll-house”
  2. Latin · derived fromtelōneum
  3. Medieval Latin · derived fromtolōneum
  4. Old English · inherited fromtoll
  5. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*del-“calculation, fraud”
  6. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*tullaz
  7. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*toll
  8. Old English · inherited fromtoll m or n
  9. Middle English · inherited fromtoll
  10. English todaytoll

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”).

toll · noun, verb2

Probably the same as Etymology 3. Possibly related to or influenced by toil

toll · verb3

  1. Old English · inherited from*tyllan
  2. Middle English · inherited fromtolen
  3. English todaytoll

From Middle English tolen, tollen, variation of tullen, tillen (“to draw, allure, entice”), from Old English *tyllan, *tillan (“to pull, draw, attract”) (found in compounds fortyllan (“to seduce, lead astray, draw away from the mark, deceive”) and betyllan, betillan (“to lure, decoy”)), related to Old Frisian tilla (“to lift, raise”), Dutch tillen (“to lift, raise, weigh, buy”), Low German tillen (“to lift, remove”), Swedish dialectal tille (“to take up, appropriate”).

toll · verb4

  1. Latin · derived fromtollō“to lift up”
  2. English todaytoll

From Latin tollō (“to lift up”).

toll · verb5

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Toll · proper noun6

* As an English surname, variant of Towle, Tole. * As a German surname, from the adjective toll, meaning both "wonderful" and "crazy, mad." Also shortened from Bartholomäus. * As a Dutch surname, variant of Tol, sometimes shortened from Van Toll.

Words from the same roots

Proto-Indo-European*del- all →

taletilttallowtotterseduloustolter

Old English*tyllan all →

till

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.