Showing results for "tollbooth"

• a variation of tolbooth.

tollbooth

American  

[tohl-booth, -booth] / ˈtoʊlˌbuθ, -ˌbuð /

noun

tollbooths plural

1. a booth, as at a bridge or the entrance to a toll road, where a toll is collected.

2. Chiefly Scot. tolbooth.

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tollbooth British  

/ ˈtəʊlˌbuːθ, ˈtɒl-, -ˌbuːð /

noun

1. a booth or kiosk at which a toll is collected

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• tollbooths
  plural

Etymology

Origin of tollbooth

First recorded in 1300–50, tollbooth is from the Middle English word tolbothe. See toll ¹, booth

Explanation

The highway kiosk where you stop and pay a fee is called a tollbooth. In the classic novel The Phantom Tollbooth, a boy drives his toy car through a magical tollbooth and is transported to a strange land. If your car has a transponder, a special electronic device, you can drive slowly past a tollbooth and pay automatically, rather than stopping and handing money to a toll collector. Only toll roads or turnpikes have tollbooths — drivers pay based on the size of their vehicle, and the toll revenue contributes to maintaining the road. The oldest tollbooths, called toll houses, were built in England, Wales, and Scotland during the 18th century.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

tollbooth tollbooths

It came to prominence recently as "Tehran's tollbooth" -- a stopping-off point for the handful of vessels that Iran approved to exit or enter the Gulf during its initial blockade earlier in the war.

From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026

Keeping the strait closed can damage its own exports, and Gulf states have vowed to resist its tollbooth plans.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026

But if you use GPS, internet, or anything trained on AI compute, you’re already in the tollbooth.

From MarketWatch ● Jan. 20, 2026

So that when people were driving to D.C., when they stopped at a tollbooth, they were given a piece of paper, told where to go, where to park, what to do.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2023

White birds scattered as they approached another gate, this one resembling a highway tollbooth.

From "Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers

The only points of passage that have tollbooths are the Suez and Panama canals, both of which are artificial constructions that require maintenance.

From Barron's ● Apr. 9, 2026

Whoever provides the gateway to our favorite online services owns one of the most valuable tollbooths in cyberspace, said Gil Luria, an analyst with D.A.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026

On its opening day, the first motorists arrived at the tollbooths in their cars and refused to pay.

From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2025

Cashless tolls have eliminated most of the long, time-eating lines at highway tollbooths, but they have a downside: They can lead to hefty bills for drivers on unfamiliar roads.

From New York Times ● Dec. 8, 2023

We steered clear of tollbooths by taking two-lane back roads, where we usually had a long line of drivers behind us, honking in exasperation.

From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls