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:
I didn’t get my recording contract till I was in my late 20s.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
Yes, there was Theranos and “fake it till you make it” Elizabeth Holmes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
Jamal also denied he was working at the mini-mart where we now stood, even though we had seen him behind the till, as well as moving stock in and out of the store.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
Government data shows the area planted with summer crops till June end is down by nearly 23%
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
Careful not to ring it, I wrapped the old sheet around and around the clapper till it was stuffed tight within the bell.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
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
Now store clerks don't know what to do when their tills are bare and someone needs change in pennies from a cash purchase.
From BBC ● Oct. 31, 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
A poor farmer who tills the nuns’ field, his three hollow-eyed children, and a guest, a traveling scholar, round out the company.
From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein
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
As more land at home has been tilled to grow corn for ethanol, commodity prices have gone up worldwide.
From Salon ● May 6, 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
If she had died, if Odenigbo and Baby and Ugwu had died, the bunker would still smell like a freshly tilled farm and the sun would still rise and the crickets would still hop around.
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In Middle Tennessee, tilling dirt was her role in fighting the Germans and Japanese.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
So, instead of tilling to loosen soil or digging to add amendments, lay needed organic amendments on top where worms and rain can help them percolate down.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 16, 2024
Some Indigenous farmers prefer even less intervention, eschewing cover crops and tilling in favor of a rich composting program and the traditional observance of lunar cycles to determine times of planting and harvesting.
From Salon ● Dec. 7, 2023
If fields are flooded, that can hamper productivity and slow down planting or ploughing and tilling.
From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2023
Everything remained the same, the dryness in the air, the dusty winds, the refugees tilling dried soil, but Kainene was not back.
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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.
