Which to use
“till” is a preposition and “told” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,706
- “till” frequency rank
- #268
- “told” frequency rank
- 1974
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | till | told |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Until; to, up to; as late as (a given time). | simple past and past participle of tell |
Where the eye mixes till and told
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: till is /tɪl/ while told is /təʊld/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1974, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
till is recorded at frequency rank #1,706, classified as aprep, pronounced /tɪl/. told is at rank #268, tagged as averb, pronounced /təʊld/.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 1974, this pair ranks #526,151 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of till vs told
Shared letters: lt. Private to "till": i. Private to "told": do.
"till" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "told" · 4 letters · shape CVCC