Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
⚠️ A heavy cost 💰 A road fee 🔔 To ring slowly 🔔 A bell sound 💰 To charge fee
to toll

to toll

20 7.5
To ring slowly, as a bell often does at funerals
  • verb
  • /toʊl/
: doblar (las campanas)
  • Somewhere in the night, a bell tolls the hour.
  • toll the bell

So the bell is tolling for someone else right now, but sooner or later is going to toll for myself, for you and me.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • John Donne warned his parishioners, "never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

    Academic text (2006)

  • As Vatican Hill emerged from the dark, the new bell began to toll.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • If this service ends peacefully, the cathedral bells begin to toll, and you will know I have failed.

    Ladyhawke (1985)

  • So just remember, no man is an island, and the bell tolled for all of us yesterday.

    Blog text (12)

  • Somewhere close by, a church bell tolled the hour.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Outside, he could hear the bell of the church tolling the twelve strokes of midnight.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • The bell now tolls from Memorial Church as the parade of dignitaries starts down the central aisle.

  • The Sultana departed Cairo on the morning of April 15th, draped in black, its flag at half-staff, tolling its bell.

    Remember the Sultana (2015)

  • As the sun set, the church bells began to toll slowly, signaling the end of the day.

  • At the memorial service, a bell began to toll solemnly as each name was read aloud.

Phrasal Verbs

to take its toll
41 4.5

To cause harm to someone or something over time

Compounds

death toll
  • Literature
82 3.5

Number of people who have died because of an accident, war, or disaster

toll road
9 2.5

A road you must pay to drive on, often a highway

toll bridge
3 3.2

A bridge you pay to cross

toll collector
2 3.1

A person who takes money from drivers at a road or bridge

toll plaza
2 3.2

A place on a road where drivers stop to pay money

toll call
2 4.9

A phone call to another city that costs more than a local call

toll taker
1 4.4

A person who collects money from drivers at a toll booth

Toll House cookie
  • US
1 2.7

A cookie with chocolate chips made from the original Toll House recipe

toll line
  • US
1 5.6

A phone connection for long distance calls that costs extra

toll agent
4.9

A person who collects money from drivers at a toll booth

How Loud

to clang
27 3.5
ring
85 1.0
to toll
20 7.5
chime
29 1.7
to tinkle
14 3.9

Surface Forms

toll infinitive
tolled past
tolled past participle
tolling present participle
tolls third person singular

Etymology

Toll as a verb, meaning to ring a bell slowly, comes from the same old word for 'to strike', so to toll a bell is to make that slow, solemn sound that often marks a death or important moment.