Til or till?
til is a conjunction meaning “Alternative spelling of till; until”; till is a conjunction meaning “Until, until the time that”. Wiktionary gives them as spellings of the same word. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) till is about 5.8 times as common as til.
What is the difference between til and till?
| til | till | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | conjunction, preposition, noun, phrase | preposition, conjunction, noun, verb |
| Meaning | colloquialuntil, till Sesame (plant: Sesamum indicum) Any of species Ocotea foetens in family Lauraceae, native to Madeira and the Canary Islands | Until; to, up to; as late as (a given time) Before (a certain time or event) Until, until the time that |
| Example | TIL that scientists call the universe's average color "cosmic latte" | She stayed till the very end |
| Forms | 'til | tills, tilling, tilled |
| Pronunciation | /tɪl/ /təl/ /tiːl/ | /tɪl/ |
| In writing | 11 times per million words | 62 times per million words |
Sources: til and till in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of til and till
til
- 1
Alternative spelling of till; until
- 2
Alternative spelling of till; until
- 3
colloquialuntil, till
- 4
colloquialuntil, till
- 5
Sesame (plant: Sesamum indicum)
- 6
Initialism of today I learned...
TIL that scientists call the universe's average color "cosmic latte"
- 7
Any of species Ocotea foetens in family Lauraceae, native to Madeira and the Canary Islands
till
- 1
Until; to, up to; as late as (a given time)
She stayed till the very end
- 2
Until, until the time that
Maybe you can, maybe you can't: you won't know till you try
- 3
UKA cash register
- 4
To develop so as to improve or prepare for usage; to cultivate (said of knowledge, virtue, mind etc.)
- 5
glacial drift consisting of a mixture of clay, sand, pebbles and boulders
- 6
A vetch; a tare
- 7
Before (a certain time or event)
It's twenty till two. (1:40)
- 8
A removable box within a cash register containing the money
Pull all the tills and lock them in the safe
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, til or till?
til appears 11 times per million words; till 62 times per million words.
til 11 times per million wordstill 62 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search til vs till?
“til vs till” is searched about 2,400 times a month on Google and 60 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“till vs til”, “til or till”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.