take one's toll

A toll is a payment which one makes to use a road, or a bridge or a ferry (a ferry is a boat used commercially to cross a body of water). It was common in the past that people would have the legal right to control your access to a public road, to charge a toll, based on a contract by which the person who took the toll maintained the road, kept it in good condition. So, that road would be called a toll road, and the person who maintained the road and collected the fees, the tolls, lived in a tollhouse.

By extension from a concrete to an abstract conception, a toll is any "price" you pay to accomplish something. So if you sleep late in the morning, but have to run to class because you slept late, that run you must make to arrive on time is the "toll" you pay for the luxury of sleeping later.

What the writer of the sentence is saying is that people who fly a long distance, or who fly frequently, pay a toll in the form of the negative effects it has on their bodies and minds. "To take a toll" can mean anything from a mild effect (losing sleep "takes a toll" on you because you might be less alert in class) to a severe effect (being forced to hike through a wilderness with little food and water could take a toll which might threaten to kill you). It is not often used to mean something which could kill you, although in some contexts, it might.

Just how much of a toll, how much of a price you must "pay" for something would be determined by the context. In the sentence you have as an example, the "toll" which is taken might be annoying, and might disrupt a person's normal routines, but would hardly be considered life-threatening.

Spanish proverb: "Take what you want," says God. "Then pay."

Hey, my proverb:"Sleep as late as you want, then yawn at classes!"

Thanks for your elaborations, Setanta!
I think I get it now with your help

PS: I learned the word ferry in Hongkong, where there are many ferries.

Why have they changed the position of the Star Ferry terminal? I object.

To facilitate the payment of the toll...

That has to be the case! U'r uber-smart! :wink:
天星碼頭

To redevelop and infill more of the waterfront.

Yeah. But nothing new there. Even in her immediate neighbour Shenzhen, where the Binhai Avenue and some high grade villas locate used to be the sea

Edited: I'm afraid I misread the sentence

I just received an e-mail with aphorisms and puns. One of the best:

Life takes its toll--have loose change ready.

Noddy- I rarely E Mail jokes, puns or other things of that ilk. I will make an exception for:


That is fabulous. Thanks!

Received and preserved!

Phoenix, Bluest Blue--

Share the wealth. I have.