“told” vs. “toll”
Use "told" as the past tense of "tell"; use "toll" for a road/bridge fee, cumulative cost or damage (noun), or the verb meaning to ring a bell slowly.
told
"Told" is the past tense of "to tell," meaning to communicate information through speech ("she told me the news"). It's an irregular verb form, and functions almost exclusively as a verb describing a completed act of speaking or writing something to someone.
toll
"Toll" functions as a noun meaning a fee charged for using a road, bridge, or tunnel ("pay the toll"), or the cumulative cost or damage caused by something ("the toll of the war"), and as a verb, means to ring a bell slowly and solemnly ("the bell tolls at dawn"). It comes from Old English "toll," related to a broader Germanic root for a tax or duty, distinct from the pulling-related root behind the bell-ringing sense, which converged with the fee sense over centuries of overlapping use.
The real distinction
"Told" describes the act of communicating something verbally, while "toll" (in its noun form) describes a fee or cumulative cost, or (as a verb) the ringing of a bell, and the two words are close enough in sound for some speakers to blur them in fast, casual speech, even though the spelling difference — one "-d" versus "-ll" — is usually clear in writing. A reliable check: if the sentence describes narrating, informing, or reporting speech, it's "told" ("he told me not to worry"); if the sentence describes a fee for road or bridge use, the cumulative cost of a disaster, or a bell ringing, it's "toll" ("the toll booth," "the storm's death toll," "the bell tolls"). The specific phrase "death toll," describing the number of people killed in a disaster or conflict, is a common and important use of "toll" as a noun worth knowing directly, since it appears constantly in news writing about accidents, natural disasters, and historical events. It's also worth noting that "toll" as a verb behaves regularly, adding "-s" for present tense ("the bell tolls") and "-ed" for past tense ("the bell tolled"), while "told" is already the irregular past tense of "tell" and never appears as "telled" under any circumstances.
Examples with “told”
- He told her exactly what had happened at the meeting.
- She was told not to open the package early.
- The doctor told them the test results were normal.
- They told the officer everything they had witnessed.
- He told his brother about the surprise party.
- She told the class a story about her childhood.
- The captain told the crew to prepare for the storm.
- He was told the flight had been delayed.
- She told her boss she needed the day off.
- They told each other stories long into the evening.
- He told the committee about the budget shortfall.
- He told his neighbors about the upcoming construction noise.
Examples with “toll”
- Drivers must pay a toll to cross the bridge.
- The disaster's death toll rose steadily throughout the week.
- The long hours took a heavy toll on his health.
- The toll booth caused a mile-long backup during rush hour.
- The war's toll on the region was devastating.
- The old church bell tolls every hour on the hour.
- The stress of the job began to toll on her.
- They installed electronic sensors to collect the toll automatically.
- The pandemic's toll on small businesses was severe.
- The bell tolled slowly as the procession passed.
- The toll collector waved the truck through without stopping.
- The highway toll increased for the first time in a decade.
Memory trick
"Told" is a simple past-tense verb about speaking, ending in a single "d." "Toll" doubles its "l," much like the repeated, doubled ringing of a bell or the repeated fees collected at a tollbooth — a small spelling clue tied to repetition. One more anchor: news reports about disasters almost always use "death toll," never "death told," a fixed phrase worth memorizing directly since it appears so frequently in journalism.