Word.ws English Dictionary

thelony

thelony noun: a toll or custom required from travelling merchants as a tax on doing business.

Noun

thelony (uncountable)

  1. (historical) A toll or custom required from travelling merchants as a tax on doing business.
    • As to thelony, it pleases us to exact old and just thelony from the merchants at bridges, and on ships and at markets. But let new or unjust thelony be not exacted where ropes are stretched or where ships pass under bridges, or in other similar cases in which no aid is lent to the travellers.1835, M.G.H., Legum, Tome I, page 228
    • If a small ship arrives at Billingsgate it will give one obole as thelony [custom]; If it is a long ship, or a barge, and if it stays there, one denarius as thelony. From a ship full of timber, one log as thelony. A freight ship gives thelony on three days a week, namely, Sunday, Tuesday, and...2003, Mary Ellen Snodgrass, Coins and Currency: An Historical Encyclopedia, →ISBN

Examples of thelony in a sentence

  • If a small ship arrives at Billingsgate it will give one obole as thelony [custom]; If it is a long ship, or a barge, and if it stays there, one denarius as thelony.2003, Mary Ellen Snodgrass, Coins and Currency: An Historical Encyclopedia, →ISBN:
  • This also I have added that if any Jew should at any time stay with them he shall pay no thelony [tolls].2012, Maristella Botticini, Zvi Eckstein, The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492, →ISBN, page 333:

Origin of thelony

From Latin telōnium, from Ancient Greek τελώνῐον (telṓnĭon, “custom house”), from τέλος (télos, “due, tax, toll”).

Questions about thelony

What does thelony mean?
Thelony means a toll or custom required from travelling merchants as a tax on doing business.
How do you use thelony in a sentence?
If a small ship arrives at Billingsgate it will give one obole as thelony [custom]; If it is a long ship, or a barge, and if it stays there, one denarius as thelony.
What part of speech is thelony?
Thelony is a noun.

Words near thelony in the dictionary

  1. thelmophagous
  2. thelodont
  3. thelodontid
  4. thelodontids
  5. thelodonts
  6. thelony
  7. thelotremataceous
  8. thelotremoid
  9. Thelusma
  10. Thelusmas
  11. Thelwall

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thelony (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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