till

till¹
preposition& conjunction

语源

Old English til, of Germanic origin; related to Old Norse til 'to', also ultimately to till

用法

In most contexts, till and until have the same meaning and are interchangeable. The main difference is that till is generally considered to be more informal than until. Until occurs more frequently than till in writing—around ten times as often in the British National Corpus. In addition, until tends to be the natural choice at the beginning of a sentenceuntil very recently, there was still a chance of rescuing the situation Interestingly, while it is commonly assumed that till is an abbreviated form of until (the spellings 'till and 'til reflect this), till is in fact the earlier form. Until appears to have been formed by the addition of Old Norse und ‘as far as' several hundred years after the date of the first records for till

till²
noun

a cash register or drawer for money in a shop, bank, or restaurant
（商店、银行或饭店的）现金出纳机；放钱的抽屉；钱柜

常用词组
have (或 with) one's fingers (或 hand) in the till

used in reference to theft from one's place of work
（职工）在本单位行窃，作内贼
he was caught with his hand in the till and sacked.
他在单位行窃时被当场抓住并被解雇。

语源

late Middle English (in the general sense 'drawer or compartment for valuables'): of unknown origin

till³
verb

[with obj.]prepare and cultivate (land) for crops
耕，犁
no land was being tilled or crops sown.
土地都尚未耕，庄稼也未播种。

派生
tillable
adjective
语源

Old English tilian 'strive for, obtain by effort', of Germanic origin; related to Dutch telen 'produce, cultivate' and German zielen 'aim, strive', also ultimately to till. The current sense dates from Middle English

till⁴
noun

[mass noun](Geology)boulder clay or other unstratified sediment deposited by melting glaciers or ice sheets
(地质)冰碛（物）

语源

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