means A charge paid for the right to pass over a road or bridge — or, more broadly, the cost or damage something inflicts (as in the toll of a long war), and also the slow ringing of a bell.

from Old English 'toll' meaning a tax or duty, traced back through Latin 'toloneum' (a tollhouse) to Greek 'telōnion,' a tax office, ultimately from 'telos,' meaning tax or due. The bell-ringing sense is a separate thread: the verb 'toll' may come from a Middle English word for pulling or drawing, the idea being that you draw the rope to make the bell sound — so the toll you pay and the toll a bell sounds reached the same spelling by different roads.