till
1 Americanverb (used with object)
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tills,
present (3rd person singular)
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tilled,
past participle, past
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tilling
present participle
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to labor, as by plowing or harrowing, upon (land) for the raising of crops; cultivate.
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to plow.
verb (used without object)
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tills,
present (3rd person singular)
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tilled,
past participle, past
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tilling
present participle
noun
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a drawer, box, or the like, as in a shop or bank, in which money is kept.
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a drawer, tray, or the like, as in a cabinet or chest, for keeping valuables.
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an arrangement of drawers or pigeonholes, as on a desk top.
noun
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Geology. glacial drift consisting of an unassorted mixture of clay, sand, gravel, and boulders.
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a stiff clay.
verb
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to cultivate and work (land) for the raising of crops
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another word for plough
noun
conjunction
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Also (not standard): 'til. short for until
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to; towards
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dialect in order that
come here till I tell you
noun
Usage
Till is a variant of until that is acceptable at all levels of language. Until is, however, often preferred at the beginning of a sentence in formal writing: until his behaviour improves, he cannot become a member
Commonly Confused
Till1 and until are both old in the language and are interchangeable as both prepositions and conjunctions: It rained till (or until ) nearly midnight. The savannah remained brown and lifeless until (or till ) the rains began. Till is not a shortened form of until and is not spelled 'till. 'Til is usually considered a spelling error, though widely used in advertising: Open 'til ten.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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tillernoun
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mistilledadjective
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tillableadjective
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untilledadjective
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untillingadjective
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well-tilledadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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tillsimple
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tillssimple
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have tilledperfect
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has tilledperfect
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am tillingprogressive
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are tillingprogressive
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is tillingprogressive
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have been tillingperfect progressive
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has been tillingperfect progressive
Past
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tilledsimple
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had tilledperfect
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was tillingprogressive
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were tillingprogressive
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had been tillingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of till1
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English (north) til “to,” from Old Norse til “to,” akin to Old English till “station, fixed point, standing-place” German Ziel “goal”
Origin of till2
First recorded before 900; Middle English tilen, Old English tilian “to strive after, get, till”; cognate with Dutch telen “to breed, cultivate,” German zielen “to aim at”
Origin of till3
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English tylle, noun use of tylle “to draw, attract,” Old English -tyllan (in fortyllan “to seduce”); akin to Latin dolus “trick,” Greek dólos “bait (for fish); any cunning contrivance; treachery”
Origin of till4
First recorded in 1665–75; origin uncertain
Explanation
The noun till means the same as "cash register." When you work at the store long enough, they'll let you operate the till. When you pay taxes to your town, they go into the local till, or government fund, for community improvements. Till is also used as a verb, meaning to work the land, to get it ready for planting and harvesting. Till can also be used to mean "until," which makes things a bit confusing. So, technically, you could have a sentence like: Don't touch the till till you take the customer's money.
Vocabulary lists containing till
Dirty Words: The Language of Gardening
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Down on the Farm
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Stamped
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“It gives people that feeling of this is how democracy works,” said Dominas, 63, who was working the till at a shop off the main drag.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
“We were young and crazy. We waited till the players came out and kind of talked to them,” said David, who says he once walked with Wilt Chamberlain to his car.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
"What's wrong with just staying in the UK, staying out till sunset, riding your bike, just going to the river, like I did? I really want the kids to experience a nostalgic summer."
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
This one won’t reach Walnut Grove till season 2.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
I dried that plate and then I dried it again, keeping busy till another came along.
From "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan
Thousands of manually collected prices will now be replaced by millions of prices collected automatically from supermarket tills.
From BBC ● Mar. 16, 2026
Though recently retired, he refuses to give up his peshmerga uniform as he tills his small plot of land.
From Barron's ● Mar. 7, 2026
She starves herself for her cause, crosses oceans and tills land to create the utopia that she believes is possible.
From Salon ● Dec. 27, 2025
A tractor tills farmland in Cantua Creek, near the site where a massive solar and battery project is planned.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2025
The dull green antique coppers spilled from out the tills of their eyesockets onto the stained and rotted coffin floors.
From "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
There is plenty of economic land waiting to be tilled.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
In Scandinavia and parts of Northern Europe, these mobile cattle herders took just a few centuries to largely replace the sedentary farmers who had tilled the soil with stone tools for millennia.
From Science Magazine ● Jan. 10, 2024
“The hope is that the kids will learn to respect nature and the environment,” Kim said, inspecting the newly tilled dirt where corn and sweet potatoes will be planted.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 2023
On a recent Sunday, children rode bicycles on new dirt paths, women tilled soil for gardens and men pulled tarps onto shelters.
From New York Times ● Apr. 30, 2023
They had cleared brush, tilled the abandoned fields, and leveled the overgrown fencerows.
From "Frightful's Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
In Middle Tennessee, tilling dirt was her role in fighting the Germans and Japanese.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
If fields are flooded, that can hamper productivity and slow down planting or ploughing and tilling.
From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2023
In the meantime, volunteers with Friends of the Ballona Wetlands are tilling the soil and preparing to put in scores of new trees and plants to help with the environmental restoration.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2023
On any given day, the farmer might do a dozen different things on the land, such as tilling, planting, weeding, harvesting or adding fertilizer.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2023
Daddy spends hours out here every night, planting, tilling, and talking.
From "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
