Word Confusion: Tole versus Toll

Plural: tole

Alternative spelling: tôle

Plural for the noun: tolls
Gerund: tolling

Third person present verb: tolls
Past tense or past participle: tolled, toled
Present participle: tolling

• [Transport; tolling] The activity of collecting fees, taxes
• A tax, duty, or tribute, as for services or use of facilities
• A liberty to buy and sell within the bounds of a manor
• [Formerly, in England] The right to take such payment
• A compensation for services, as for transportation or transmission
• [North American; New Zealand] A charge for a long-distance telephone call

[In singular] The number of deaths, casualties, or injuries arising from particular circumstances, such as a natural disaster, conflict, or accident ²

• The cost or damage resulting from something

[tolling] The process of officially increasing the period of time within which someone can be accused of a crime after the date when it was committed

[In singular] A single ring of a bell ³

[Law] A suspension of effect ⁵

A clump of trees ⁶

Verb, intransitive:
To collect a fee ¹

• Levy a fee

[With reference to a bell] Sound or cause to sound with a slow, uniform succession of strokes, as a signal or announcement ³

[Law] To be suspended, interrupted ⁵

Verb, transitive:
Charge a fee for the use of a bridge, fair, market, road, or something ¹

• To impose a tax or charge on (a person)

[With reference to a bell] Sound or cause to sound with a slow, uniform succession of strokes, as a signal or announcement ³

• [Of a bell] Announce or mark (the time, a service, or a person’s death)
• To cause (a large bell) to sound with single strokes slowly and regularly repeated, as for summoning a congregation to church, or especially for announcing a death
• To sound or strike (a knell, the hour, etc.) by such strokes
• To announce by this means
• Ring a knell for (a dying or dead person)

To summon or dismiss by tolling

To tear in pieces

[Hunting; US and Canada] To lure or decoy (game) by arousing curiosity ⁴

To allure

• Entice (game) to approach
• To attract (fish) with scattered bait
• To lead or attract (domestic animals) to a desired point

[Law] To suspend or interrupt, as a statute of limitations ⁵

Many of our other lawn and garden projects are also popular with tole painters, including our planter collection that consists of a garden wheelbarrow, a plump little pig, and a dairy cow planter.

The wall design unfolded like a connect-the-dots drawing; it started with the tole tray and blue-and-white platter, then built up and out from there until a pleasing pattern developed.

The Golden Gate Bridge is a toll bridge.

“For Ireland, the toll was heavy” (Walsh).

“Will the owners of townhouses carve out self-contained flats in the attic or the basement to avoid the annual toll?” – The Sunday Times, 2015

We can handle on a toll basis your needs for spray drying, repackaging, crushing and grinding, and dry blending.

Keep it short, this is a toll call.

The miller charges a toll of one bag of flour for every nine he grinds.

The toll of dead and injured mounted.

The environmental toll of the policy has been high.

Years of pumping iron have taken their toll on his body.

In a tolling agreement, the statute of limitations on the prosecution of a crime no longer applies.

Tolling systems can greatly reduce congestion on busy roads.

The report advocates expressway tolling.

She heard the Cambridge School bell utter a single toll.

The court extended the statute of limitations toll.

A toll of trees should be planted to create harmonies and contrasts.

Verb, intransitive:
The bells of the cathedral began to toll for evening service.

The bell tolls solemnly.

“The statute of limitations tolls for a period of seventy-five days following the notice” (Stewart).

Verb, transitive:
The transport minister opposes tolling existing roads.

The priest began tolling the bell.

The bell of St. Mary’s began to toll the curfew.

In the distance Big Ben tolled five.

The clock tolled each hour.

Church bells tolled the death of the bishop.

Bells tolled the congregation to church.

“Observant sportsmen took a page from the foxes’ book and began using small, reddish dogs to toll in rafted ducks, throwing sticks (or whatever was handy) to keep the dogs in constant motion up and down the shore” (Davis).

“Hou many virgins shal she tolle and drawe to þe Lord.” – “Life of Our Lady”

He tolls us on with fine promises.

“This notion that the election TOLLS the criminal justice system is laughable” (Baier).

The court did not toll the statute of repose after the statutory period had expired.

1. Old English, denoting a charge, tax, or duty, from the medieval Latin toloneum, an alteration of the late Latin teloneum, from the Greek telōnion meaning toll house, from telos meaning tax.
2. Late 19th century, it arose from the notion of paying a toll or tribute in human lives (to an adversary or to death).
3. Late Middle English, probably a special use of dialect toll meaning drag, pull.
4. Alternate spelling: tole, toal
5. First recorded in 1425–75, late Middle English tollen meaning to remove, legally annul, from the Anglo-French to(u)ller, from the Latin tollere meaning to lift up, take away, remove.
6. 1644