Meanings
- historicaluncountableA toll or custom required from travelling merchants as a tax on doing business.
This also I have added that if any Jew should at any time stay with them he shall pay no thelony [tolls].
2012, Maristella Botticini, Zvi Eckstein, The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492, →ISBN, page 3333 more examples
As to thelony, it pleases us to exact old and just thelony from the merchants at bridges, and on ships and at markets. But let new or unjust thelony be not exacted where ropes are stretched or where ships pass under bridges, or in other similar cases in which no aid is lent to the travellers.
1835, M.G.H., Legum, Tome I, page 228If a small ship arrives at Billingsgate it will give one obole as thelony [custom]; If it is a long ship, or a barge, and if it stays there, one denarius as thelony. From a ship full of timber, one log as thelony. A freight ship gives thelony on three days a week, namely, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.
2003, Mary Ellen Snodgrass, Coins and Currency: An Historical Encyclopedia, →ISBNMerchants, that is Jews – as well as other merchants, wherever they come from, from that country or from others – shall pay the just thelony [toll], both for their servants and their goods, as was always the case in the time of previous kings.
2011, Paul Kriwaczek, Yiddish Civilisation: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation, →ISBN
Origin
- Ancient Greekτελώνῐον“custom house”
- Latintelōnium
- Englishthelony
From Latin telōnium, from Ancient Greek τελώνῐον (telṓnĭon, “custom house”), from τέλος (télos, “due, tax, toll”).
More words from Latin, Ancient Greek
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
thelony. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/thelony
“thelony.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/thelony. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “thelony,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/thelony.
Source: thelony on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.