Origin and history of toll

"tax paid, duty imposed, fee," Middle English tol, a general term for payment or tribute exacted by an authority, from Old English toll "impost, tribute, passage-money, rent," variant of toln, cognate with Old Norse tollr, Old Frisian tolen, Old High German zol, German Zoll. According to Watkins, etc., probably an early Germanic borrowing from Late Latin tolonium "custom house," classical Latin telonium "tollhouse," from Greek teloneion "tollhouse," from telones "tax-collector," from telos "duty, tax, expense, cost" (from suffixed form of PIE root *tele- "to lift, support, weigh;" see extol) For sense, compare finance. On another theory it is native Germanic and related to tell (v.) on the notion of "that which is counted."

In Middle English a legal term for the right to charge for certain imports, products, sales, passages, etc.; the specific meaning "charge for right of passage along a road" is from late 15c. On the old telephones a toll-call was one made outside the local area, for which there was a special charge. The figurative use of take its toll as "exact a cost" is by 1910.

Middle English bride-toll (12c.) was a fee paid to the lord upon the marriage outside the manor of one of his bondswomen (often accompanied in old documents by childwite, the fine for getting one with child).

As a verb, Middle English tollen "pay tolls; levy a toll."

"to sound (a bell) with slow single strokes" (intransitive), mid-15c., probably a special use of Middle English tollen "to draw, lure, attract" (early 13c.), a variant of an unrecorded Old English *tollian, preserved in betyllan "to lure, decoy," and fortyllan "draw away, seduce," a word or element of obscure origin.

If so, the extended notion might be via tollen in a secondary sense of "to work, labor, pull (someone), drag" (c. 1400) and be a reference to the "drawing" on the bell rope. Or the notion might be "luring" people to church with the sound of the bells. A method used for summoning religious congregations or announcing a death or at a funeral, hence by late 16c. it had a figurative association with those qualities.

The transitive sense is from late 15c. Related: Tolled; tolling. The noun meaning "a stroke of a bell" is from mid-15c.

Toll (v.) "draw, lure, attract" persisted past Middle English: " 'Tis a mermaid, Has tolled my son to shipwreck" [Middleton/Dekker, "Roaring Girl"]. It emerged in U.S. dialect as "lure wild animals (ducks, etc.) for capture" (1838). Toll-bait was chum or other minced fish, etc., thrown overboard to lure fish.