toll
/təʊl/
"toll" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“toll” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #6,304 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #6,304
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 3
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A fee paid for some liberty or privilege, particularly for the privilege of passing over a bridge or on a highway, or for that of vending goods in a fair, market, etc.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | toll |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /təʊl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #6,304 |
| Misspellings tracked | 3 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “toll” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for toll is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /təʊl/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,304 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 3 likely wrong-spelling variants for toll, with forms such as "otll", "tlol", and "ttoll". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "too", "top", "tom", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English toll, tol, tolle, from Old English toll m or n and toln f (“toll, duty, custom”), from Proto-West Germanic *toll, *tolnu, from Proto-Germanic *tullaz, *tullō (“that which is counted or told, reckoning”), from Proto-Indo-European *del- (“… The correct English form is toll, spelled T-O-L-L.
Definition
- 1A fee paid for some liberty or privilege, particularly for the privilege of passing over a bridge or on a highway, or for that of vending goods in a fair, market, etc.
- 2Loss or damage incurred through a disaster.
- 3A fee paid by the owner of materials or other goods for processing such goods, as under a tolling agreement.
- 4A fee for using any kind of material processing service.
- 5A tollbooth.
- 6A liberty to buy and sell within the bounds of a manor.
- 7A portion of grain taken by a miller as a compensation for grinding.
Etymology
From Middle English toll, tol, tolle, from Old English toll m or n and toln f (“toll, duty, custom”), from Proto-West Germanic *toll, *tolnu, from Proto-Germanic *tullaz, *tullō (“that which is counted or told, reckoning”), from Proto-Indo-European *del- (“calculation, fraud”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Tol (“toll”), Dutch tol (“toll”), German Zoll (“toll, duty, customs”), Danish told (“toll, duty, tariff”), Swedish tull (“toll, customs”), Icelandic tollur (“toll, customs”). More at tell, tale. Alternate etymology derives Old English toll from Medieval Latin tolōneum, tolōnium, alteration (due to the Germanic forms above) of Latin telōneum, from Ancient Greek τελώνιον (telṓnion, “toll-house”), from τέλος (télos, “tax”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: otll,tlol,ttoll
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of toll - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "toll"?
What does "toll" mean?
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Using “toll”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-O-L-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /təʊl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “too” - see the side-by-side comparison. toll vs too
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.