til vs till, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“til” and “till” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#28,972
“til” frequency rank: #48,115
“till” frequency rank: 77087
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	til	till
Definition	Hasta.	Hasta, hasta que, hasta la, hasta el.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set til and till apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

3 ch

til

4 ch

till

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

This is the hard kind. til and till are pronounced identically (/tɪl/) and both work as apreposition. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “til” sits inside “till”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77087, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

til is recorded at frequency rank #28,972, classified as aprep, pronounced /tɪl/. till is at rank #48,115, tagged as aprep, pronounced /tɪl/.

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 77087, this pair ranks #16,609 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of til vs till

Shared letters: ilt. Private to "til": -. Private to "till": -.

"til" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "till" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

till ← itll · tlil · ttill

Frequency comparison

til#28,972

till#48,115

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "til" and "till" be used interchangeably?

No. They are pronounced the same (/tɪl/), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.

Which is more common, "til" or "till"?

"til" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,972 in our Spanish list, against #48,115 for "till". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering til vs till

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Read both glosses above and match the meaning you intend, only context separates this pair.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “til” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable