teller
noun
a person or thing that tells, relates, or communicates; narrator.
teller
1 American
[tel-er]
/ ˈtɛl ər /
noun
-
tellers
plural
-
a person or thing that tells, relates, or communicates; narrator.
Grandpa was a great teller of tall, tall tales.
-
a person employed in a bank to receive or pay out money over the counter.
-
a person who tells, counts, or enumerates, as one appointed to count votes in a legislative body.
Teller
2
American
[tel-er]
/ ˈtɛl ər /
noun
teller
1
British
/ ˈtɛlə /
noun
-
another name for cashier 1
-
a person appointed to count votes in a legislative body, assembly, etc
-
a person who tells; narrator
Teller
2
British
/ ˈtɛlə /
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of teller
Middle English word dating back to 1300–50; see origin at tell 1, -er 1
Explanation
A teller is either someone who tells some sort of story or a person who works in a bank. A bank clerk who loves to talk about her adventures? She's both kinds of teller. You might be a teller of tales, known for spinning stories, or a teller of lies, famous for your fibs. If you're a teller at a bank, you cash customers' checks and make their deposits. There aren't as many bank tellers as there once were, since this job is increasingly done by ATMs, or automatic teller machines. Teller comes from an obscure sense of the verb tell, "count."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She and Mark met at a local bank where she worked for years as a teller.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
She was thinking about a bank teller who had been flirting with her spouse.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
The bank fixed the error and gave him a deposit slip that read: “Correction, teller debited wrong account.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
You could presumably use the fortune teller thing from “The Twilight Zone,” where you put a nickel in and a little slip of paper comes out.
From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2026
Before Mal could snatch her hand away, the fortune teller had seized it.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
“Sometimes I’ll refer to myself as the Chief Truth Teller, just so I can be really candid.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
In all, Teller lost 80 established hives as well as 16 hives with bees he has rescued as part of his bee removal business.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026
“We could look at millions of bees dying because we can’t perform that service at the price that we used to,” Teller said.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026
Oscar nominee Colman Domingo plays the singer's father Joe Jackson in the film, which also stars Nia Long as mother Katherine Jackson, and Top Gun: Maverick star Miles Teller as entertainment lawyer John Branca.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2026
Yet this view fails to reckon with the persuasive powers of Ernest Lawrence and Edward Teller, which played the crucial role in creating momentum for the H-bomb.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
But if all actors aspire to be truth tellers, Panettiere actually was.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026
Then scammers typically pile on pressure, adding voices claiming to be attorneys, courtroom clerks or bank tellers -- a cast of fictitious characters in a chaotic, urgent-sounding call.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
You encountered one of the many honest, diligent bank tellers.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 21, 2025
As often happens, truth tellers weren’t really in short supply.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2025
They milled around, casting quick glances up and down the sidewalk, like they were waiting for someone, all of them so nicely dressed, wearing ties with clips on them like store clerks and bank tellers.
From "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
