till

pronunciation

How to pronounce till in British English: UK [tɪl] word uk audio image

How to pronounce till in American English: US [tɪl] word us audio image

Noun:

unstratified soil deposited by a glacier; consists of sand and clay and gravel and boulders mixed together
a treasury for government funds
a strongbox for holding cash
Verb:

work land as by ploughing, harrowing, and manuring, in order to make it ready for cultivation

Word Origin

till: till: English has three distinct words till, but two of them are probably related. The etymological notion underlying till ‘cultivate the soil’ [OE] is of ‘striving to obtain a goal’. Indeed, that is what its Old English ancestor tilian originally meant; ‘cultivate’ is a late Old English development, via an intermediate ‘labour’. The verb comes from a prehistoric Germanic *tilōjan, a derivative of the noun *tilam ‘aim, purpose’ (source of German ziel ‘goal’).This passed into Old English as till ‘fixed point’, which seems to have been converted into a preposition meaning ‘up to a particular point (originally in space, but soon also in time)’. The compound until dates from the 13th century; its first element was borrowed from Old Norse *und ‘till’. The origins of till ‘money box’ [15] are uncertain.

till (prep.): "until," Old English til (Northumbrian) "to," from Old Norse til "to, until," from Proto-Germanic *tilan (cognates: Danish til, Old Frisian til "to, till," Gothic tils "convenient," German Ziel "limit, end, goal"). A common preposition in Scandinavian, serving in the place of English to, probably originally the accusative case of a noun now lost except for Icelandic tili "scope," the noun used to express aim, direction, purpose (as in aldrtili "death," literally "end of life"). Also compare German Ziel "end, limit, point aimed at, goal," and till (v.).

till (v.): "cultivate (land)" early 13c.; "plow," late 14c., from Old English tilian "cultivate, tend, work at, get by labor," originally "strive after, aim at, aspire to," related to till "fixed point, goal," and til "good, useful, suitable," from Proto-Germanic *tilojan (cognates: Old Frisian tilia "to get, cultivate," Old Saxon tilian "to obtain," Middle Dutch, Dutch telen "to breed, raise, cultivate, cause," Old High German zilon "to strive," German zielen "to aim, strive"), from source of till (prep.). For sense development, compare expression work the land, Old Norse yrkja "work," but especially "cultivate" (and also "to make verses"); Old Church Slavonic delati "work," also "cultivate." Related: Tilled; tilling.

till (n.): "cashbox," mid-15c., from Anglo-French tylle "compartment," Old French tille "compartment, shelter on a ship," probably from Old Norse þilja "plank, floorboard," from Proto-Germanic *theljon. The other theory [Klein, Century Dictionary] is that the word is from Middle English tillen "to draw," from Old English -tyllan (see toll (v.)), with a sense evolution as in drawer (see draw (v.)).