Also 4 -ere, 6 -or. [f. TELL v. + -ER1.] One who or that which tells, in various senses.
I. 1. 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. Shaks., 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.
1894. Critic, XXV. 18 Aug., 108/1. When Mark Twain was a little boy, foreseeing his future celebrity as a teller of tall tales, he began to practice the art of yarn-spinning on all about him.
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. 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. 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 now performed by the Comptroller of the Exchequer.
1488. Naval Acc. Hen. VII. (1896), 34. William Page oon of 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 (esp. the House of Commons), A person (usually one of two or more) who counts the votes on a division.
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.
1883. Times (weekly ed.), 29 June, 10/1. 644 members, including the Speaker and tellers.
III. 3. Pugil. 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.
