till
1 Americanverb (used with object)
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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)
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:
Yes, there was Theranos and “fake it till you make it” Elizabeth Holmes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
“NOOOO tell her to wait till Thursday!!!!!” one person wrote on Instagram.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
"I think we partied till 7am that night. And then we actually had to leave at 7am. I didn't even realise the time because I was having that much of a good time," she said.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
In 2022, Modi praised Aurobindo's "unyielding nationalism" while visiting nearby Puducherry, a French colonial outpost till 1954.
From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026
But she stayed being a hero till she went to sleep, because tonight she liked it better than being Nim.
From "Nim’s Island" by Wendy Orr
A fish and chip shop owner says he is installing self-service tills to protect staff from customers with "abrupt" questions about price rises.
From BBC ● May 13, 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
His Croydon store, with a colourful Christmas aisle, is bustling on a weekend visit with queues for the tills as shoppers stock up on mouthwash, washing up liquid, sweets and batteries.
From BBC ● Nov. 20, 2025
His family tills 3,400 acres of soybeans, corn and other crops.
From Barron's ● Oct. 13, 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
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
At age 68, he believes hip-hop culture tilled the ground for the election of the first Black American president in 2008.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 9, 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
Lark said prairies and grasslands are being converted to acres of corn that have to be tilled and have their soil disrupted on an annual basis.
From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2023
Colonial writers knew that disease tilled the virgin soil of the Americas countless times in the sixteenth century.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
In Middle Tennessee, tilling dirt was her role in fighting the Germans and Japanese.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
Having to avoid pesticides and herbicides often makes organic farms more reliant on tilling soil to keep crops weed-free, for example, so many must be more proactive about soil health.
From Salon ● Jan. 2, 2025
The bears also have a special skill — tilling soil with their claws.
From Seattle Times ● May 6, 2024
If fields are flooded, that can hamper productivity and slow down planting or ploughing and tilling.
From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2023
Early farmers would have discovered by trial and error that they could obtain higher yields by tilling and watering the soil and then sowing seeds.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
