toll meaning and examples

2025-09-02

Meaning

The word toll has multiple meanings depending on context:

  1. Noun

    • A fee paid for using a road, bridge, or tunnel.
    • The number of deaths, casualties, or damages resulting from an accident, war, or disaster.
    • The sound of a large bell being rung slowly.

  2. Verb

    • To ring a large bell slowly, often to mark death, mourning, or the passage of time.

Grammar and Usage

  • Toll (noun): countable or uncountable.

    • pay a toll, death toll, road toll.

  • Toll (verb): intransitive or transitive.

    • The bell tolled at midnight.
    • The church tolled the bell for the funeral.

Typical structures

  • pay a toll to use sth
  • the death toll rises/falls
  • a bell tolls for sb

Common Phrases

  • Pay a toll – to pay money to use a road or bridge.
  • Death toll – the number of people who died in an event.
  • Take a toll (on sb/sth) – to cause damage, suffering, or loss over time.
  • Toll bell – a bell rung slowly, often for funerals.

Collocations

  • Verb + toll: pay, collect, raise, increase, ring
  • Adjective + toll: heavy toll, high toll, rising toll, tragic toll
  • Noun + toll: road toll, bridge toll, death toll

Examples

  1. Drivers must pay a toll to cross the expressway bridge.
  2. The earthquake’s death toll has reached 2,000.
  3. Years of stress have taken a toll on his health.
  4. The church bell tolled at midnight.
  5. The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the economy.
  6. You can buy an electronic pass to avoid waiting at the toll booth.
  7. The war has exacted a terrible toll on the civilian population.
  8. The bell tolled solemnly during the funeral service.
  • For “fee” meaning: charge, tariff, duty, levy
  • For “death toll” meaning: casualties, losses, fatalities
  • For “bell toll” meaning: chime, ring, peal
  • For “take a toll” meaning: damage, harm, weaken, exhaust