tolls

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of toll.

   Commuters complained that the bridge tolls had risen sharply over the year.

   Revenue from the tolls funds maintenance along the entire turnpike.

   Note

   Most often the plural counts charges: bridge tolls, highway tolls, the fees once taken for selling goods at a fair or market. In industry the same plural names processing fees paid under a tolling agreement. In US usage the tolls can be the tollbooths themselves, so a driver slows down at the tolls rather than paying them. The manorial liberty to buy and sell is obsolete.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of toll.

   The cathedral bell tolls slowly during a funeral procession.

   Whenever the clock strikes midnight, the old tower tolls twelve times.

   Note

   The bell is the usual subject here, but the verb is ergative: the bell tolls, or the sexton tolls the bell, with no change of form. A rarer transitive use summons people by ringing, as when a bell tolls the village to prayer. The fee-taking verb survives too, as in a county that tolls a bridge. It shares this spelling with the plural noun, so the sentence's grammar decides which is meant.

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