teller

What it means

1. A person who tells stories.
2. USbankingA bank clerk who receives and pays out money.

   Sukumar was thirty years old, four years into his bank job, where he’d moved up to the role of teller, turning up to work on time every day, counting the money, making the deposits, entering in the ledger, filing the reports.

   2025, Santanu Bhattacharya, Deviants, Fig Tree, page 93

   Synonyms: cashier

3. broadlyA cashier at any place of business.

   The main street was shuttered; the only sign of life she detected was behind the window of the petrol station, where the teller was counting the day's cash balance into the till.

   2023, Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood, page 60

   2 more examples

   In the case discussed above, for example, the employee who stole money did so by waiting until another teller was on break, then logging on to that teller's register, ringing a “no sale,” and taking the cash.

   2007, Joseph T. Wells, Corporate Fraud Handbook: Prevention and Detection, page 107

   The young femail teller fingered the prices into the cash register at great speed with great dexterity while simultaneously holding a conversation with the teller in the next lane.

   2013, Alastair Henry, Awakening in the Northwest Territories

In a sentence

Sukumar was thirty years old, four years into his bank job, where he’d moved up to the role of teller, turning up to work on time every day, counting the money, making the deposits, entering in the ledger, filing the reports.

2025, Santanu Bhattacharya, Deviants, Fig Tree, page 93

Where it comes from

1. Middle Englishtellere“one who counts or enumerates; one who recounts or relates; teller”
2. Englishteller

From Middle English tellere (“one who counts or enumerates; one who recounts or relates; teller”), equivalent to tell (verb) + -er.