Tollhouse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A structure designated for the collection of fees from travelers, commonly situated on highways or bridges, which serves both an architectural and functional role in transportation
2. A building where tolls are imposed on vehicles to facilitate roadway maintenance, acting as a vital checkpoint in travel infrastructure
3. A small building where travelers pay fees for using a road or crossing

Etymology: A tollhouse is, quite literally, a house in which a toll collector lived, and for much of its history that was the point. Toll collectors were often paid partly in lodging, so the building that held the gate and the money box was also the collector's home. The building was named for its function as a house of the toll, and the living arrangement was part of the arrangement. "Toll" traces back to an Old English word for a tax or duty on goods, and "house" needs no introduction. The compound is transparent in a way many English words are not: nothing about it had to be reinterpreted over time. A tollhouse was simply the place where a toll was taken, and in earlier centuries that place was usually somebody's front room, with a bar or gate across the road outside.

Synonyms: toll booth