till
Noun · VerbWordNet 3.0
Noun (3)
- unstratified soil deposited by a glacier; consists of sand and clay and gravel and boulders mixed togetherSynonyms: boulder clay
- a treasury for government fundsSynonyms: public treasurytrough
- a strongbox for holding cashSynonyms: cashboxmoney box
Verb (1)
- work land as by ploughing, harrowing, and manuring, in order to make it ready for cultivation“till the soil”
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: Abbrev. from lentil.
A vetch; a tare. dialect (England)
Origin: Properly, a drawer, from OE. tillen to draw. See Tiller the lever of a rudder.
A drawer. Specifically: (a) A tray or drawer in a chest. (b) A money drawer in a shop or store.
Till alarm, a device for sounding an alarm when a money drawer is opened or tampered with.
1. Geology A deposit of clay, sand, and gravel, without lamination, formed in a glacier valley by means of the waters derived from the melting glaciers; — sometimes applied to alluvium of an upper river terrace, when not laminated, and appearing as if formed in the same manner.
2. A kind of coarse, obdurate land. John Claudius Loudon
Origin: OE. til, Icel. til; akin to Dan. til, Sw. till, OFries. til, also to AS. til good, excellent, G. ziel end, limit, object, OHG. zil, Goth. tils, gatils, fit, convenient, and E. till to cultivate. See Till, transitive verb
To; unto; up to; as far as; until; — now used only in respect to time, but formerly, also, of place, degree, etc., and still so used in Scotland and in parts of England and Ireland; as, I worked till four o'clock; I will wait till next week.
He... came till an house.— Geoffrey Chaucer
Women, up till this Cramped under worse than South-sea-isle taboo.— Alfred Tennyson
Similar sentiments will recur to every one familiar with his writings — all through them till the very end.— John Wilson
Till now, to the present time. — Till then, to that time.
As far as; up to the place or degree that; especially, up to the time that; that is, to the time specified in the sentence or clause following; until.
And said unto them, Occupy till I come.— Luke xix. 13.
Mediate so long till you make some act of prayer to God.— Taylor, Jeremy
There was no outbreak till the regiment arrived.— Thomas Babington Macaulay
☞ This use may be explained by supposing an ellipsis of when, or the time when, the proper conjunction or conjunctive adverb begin when.
Origin: OE. tilen, tilien, AS. tilian, teolian, to aim, strive for, till; akin to OS. tilian to get, D. telen to propagate, G. zielen to aim, ziel an end, object, and perhaps also to E. tide, time, from the idea of something fixed or definite. Cf. Teal, Till, preposition.
1. To plow and prepare for seed, and to sow, dress, raise crops from, etc., to cultivate; as, to till the earth, a field, a farm.
No field nolde [would not] tilye.— See Piers Plowman.
the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.— Gen. iii. 23.
2. To prepare; to get. obsolete William Browne
To cultivate land. Vision of Piers Plowman
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54