Why do media uses 'Toll' term when many ppl dies because of disaster?

Question

Allways wondering how did this word 'Toll' began to use mostly all over.Why do media uses 'Toll' term when many ppl dies because of disaster?

Answer 1

death toll  means  death count

from a very long way back (ancient Greek and Latin) the word toll is related to the word  tally....this is still used to day to mean to add or count, for example paper votes are counted in a tallyroom. The most common other use of toll is in toll road, toll gate etc....it was used in this sense in Roman times for a customs gate, where people had to pay custom duties on goods before they were allowed to pass through (now we pay to be allowed to drive through). This was also a meaning of  counting, as it was where they counted off what had to be paid (often not money, but a portion of the goods).

we could also say injured toll but that is hard to pronounce, so we say "the death toll has reached 500 and the count of injured is also rising"

we also say Road Toll, as a shorthand way of saying the number of people killed in road accidents/crashes (not in one smash but in a week or a month in a city or state)...the count of total road deaths

sometimes we hear "the disease is taking its toll of the population"   in this usage it goes back to the Roman customs meaning of counting up a portion of something, so the disease is taking a sizable number of victims.

Answer 2

toll is a noun refering to the amount of something like the death toll was high. or the toll of those who died was in the millions.

toll is a verb meaning to collect as in taxes or money. to pay a toll before crossing the brigde. many words in the english language have one spelling but more than one meaning depending on how you use it in a sentence.