▪ I. teller
(ˈtɛlə(r))
Also 4 -ere, 6 -or.
[f. tell v. + -er1.]
One who or that which tells, in various senses.
I. 1. a. One who relates, makes known, or announces.
| 13.. K. Alis. 1577 Teller of jeste is ofte myslike. 1382 Wyclif Acts xvii. 18 He is seyn for to be a tellere of newe deuelis. 1547–64 Bauldwin Mor. Philos. (Palfr.) 125 There is no difference betweene a great teller of tydings and a lyer. 1548 Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. Mark xii. 76 We knowe ryght well that thou arte a teller of trouthe, and feareste no man. 1552 Huloet, Teller of fortune, ominator, uel trix. 1606 Shakes. Ant. & Cl. i. ii. 99 The Nature of bad newes infects the Teller. 1825 Lamb Elia Ser. ii. Stage Illusion, The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. 1874 L. Stephen Hours in Library (1892) I. iv. 145 He had been a teller of stories before he was well in breeches. |
b. A thing that makes known or announces.
| 1761 Bliss in Phil. Trans. LII. 176 Mr. Phelps lost the final contact, by mistaking the teller of the clock. 1877 N. & Q. 5th Ser. VII. 164/1 At Frisby and elsewhere these tolls [for the dead] are called ‘tellers’. 1898 G. S. Tyack Bk. about Bells i. 8 The use of bells as tellers of the passing time. 1909 Deedes & Walters Ch. Bells Essex 149 We now come to the uses of the tellers, for which the normal custom is 3 × 3 strokes for a man, 3 × 2 for a woman, including children, usually both beginning and end of tolling. |
II. 2. a. One who counts or keeps tally; now esp. one who counts money; spec. an officer in a bank who receives or pays money over the counter.
| 1480 Howard Househ. Bks. (Roxb.) 9 John Fytzherberd, one of the tellers of the money. 1535 Act 27 Hen. VIII, c. 14 §2 Euery porte..where no tellers nor packers at this present time be. 1576 Gascoigne Steele Gl. (Arb.) 80 When Siluer sticks not on the Tellers fingers. 1601 J. Keymer Obs. Dutch Fish. (1664) 7 Shee [the Herring-Buss] imployeth..at Land..Packers, Tellers, Dressers. 1632 Brome Court Begg. i. i, To put you to some Tellers Clearke to teach you Ambo-dexterity in telling money. 1766 Entick London IV. 342 [At the mint] A weigher and teller,..blanchers, moniers, &c. 1843 Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl. VI. 278/2 The inconveniences to which the ‘tellers’ were subjected in weighing gold for the public. 1887 Times 26 Aug. 8/4 The bank, in which there were only the teller and a clerk. |
b. One of four officers of the Exchequer formerly charged with the receipt and payment of moneys.
The office was abolished in 1834, the duties being subsequently performed by the Comptroller of the Exchequer.
| 1488 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 34 William Page oon o. the Tellers of the Kyngs said Receipt. 1583 in Feuillerat Revels Q. Eliz. (1908) 360–1 Table iii, One of the Tellors of the saide receipte. 1702 Lond. Gaz. No. 3782/3 One of the Four Tellers of His Majesty's Exchequer. 1812 Whitbread Sp. Ho. Comm. 7 May, The..emolument drawn by the late first Lord of the Admiralty as Teller of Exchequer. 1884 T. Walden in Harper's Mag. Aug. 424/2 At the entrance of the Hall..you passed the Exchequer. You may yet see over the doorway the grotesque effigies of the teller. |
c. In a deliberative assembly (as the House of Commons), A person (usually one of two or more) who counts the votes on a division. Also attrib. in teller vote (U.S.), a vote taken by tellers as members file past them; spec. a category of vote in the House of Representatives, in which the tellers record the votes of members but not (until 1970) their names.
| 1669 [see tell v. 21 b]. 1682 N. O. Boileau's Lutrin iv. 146 Let faithful tellers take the Poll, and note The Ay's and Noe's. 1775 Burke Corr. (1844) II. 8 Rose Fuller was..one of the tellers on the division. 1857 Toulmin Smith Parish 62 The tellers must then give in to the Chairman the number found on each side, as agreed on between them. 1888 Times (weekly ed.) 29 June 10/1, 644 members, including the Speaker and tellers. |
| Comb. 1924 Congressional Rec. 11 Apr. 6142/1 Is not the teller vote the highest in the committee? 1935 Sun (Baltimore) 1 July 1/8 The House is working under a rule which precludes a direct roll-call vote..but a teller vote..is to be taken. 1972 W. Weaver Both Your Houses vii. 99 If the outcome of a division is unsatisfactory to at least twenty members of the Committee of the Whole..they can demand a teller vote. 1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia XIV. 722/1 Voting procedures range from the formal procedure of the division or teller vote in the British House of Commons to the electric voting methods employed in the California legislature. |
III. 3. Pugilistic slang. A telling blow.
| 1814 Sporting Mag. XLIII. 70 He sometimes put in some good tellers on his opponent's body. 1834 H. Ainsworth Rookwood iv. ii, A teller vos planted..upon his smeller. |
▪ II. teller
dial. variant of tiller, sapling.