tollbooth

American  

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

noun

plural

tollbooths

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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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

A tollbooth in Hormuz would violate international law and mark another step toward the fragmentation of global trade, analysts said.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 10, 2026

It has come to prominence recently and been dubbed "Tehran's tollbooth" -- a stopping-off point for the handful of vessels that Iran has approved to exit or enter the Gulf.

From Barron's • Mar. 27, 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

He’d gotten a warning from E-ZPass about approaching a tollbooth too quickly, seventy miles south of Brandywine, down 1-95, at an exit called Marathon.

From "Burning Blue" by Paul Griffin