Origin and history of till

till(prep.)

Middle English til, tille "(going) onward to and into; (extending) as far as; (in time) continuing up to;" from Old English til (Northumbrian) "to," and from Old Norse til "to, until," both from Proto-Germanic *tilan (source also of Danish til, Old Frisian til "to, till," Gothic tils "convenient," German Ziel "limit, end, goal").

A common preposition in Scandinavian, serving in the place of English to, probably originally the accusative case of a noun otherwise lost but preserved in Icelandic tili "scope," the noun used to express aim, direction, purpose (as in aldrtili "death," literally "end of life"). Also compare German Ziel "end, limit, point aimed at, goal," and till (v.).

As a conjunction, "until, to the time that or when," from late Old English.

till(v.)

early 13c., "cultivate (land), bestow labor and effort on to raise crops;" late 14c., "to plow;" from Old English tilian "cultivate, tend;" more broadly "work at, get by labor," originally "strive after, make an effort, exert oneself to get, aim at, aspire to," related to till "fixed point, goal," and til "good, useful, suitable," from Proto-Germanic *tilojan (source also of Old Frisian tilia "to get, cultivate," Old Saxon tilian "to obtain," Middle Dutch, Dutch telen "to breed, raise, cultivate, cause," Old High German zilon "to strive," German zielen "to aim, strive"), from source of till (prep.).

Figurative use from late 14c. For sense development, compare expressions such as work the land "cultivate crops," Old Norse yrkja "work," but especially "cultivate" (and also "to make verses"); Old Church Slavonic delati "work," also "cultivate." Related: Tilled; tilling.

also from early 13c.

till(n.1)

"cashbox," 1690s, a specialized sense, earlier "locker, casket, container," mid-15c., a word of obscure origin. Perhaps (Middle English Compendium) from Anglo-French tylle "compartment," Old French tille "compartment, shelter on a ship," which is probably from Old Norse þilja "plank, floorboard," from Proto-Germanic *theljon. Another theory [Klein, Century Dictionary] is that the word is from Middle English tillen "to draw, pull; entice, allure," from Old English -tyllan (see toll (v.)), with sense evolution as in drawer (see draw (v.)).

Middle English Compendium also points to Anglo-Latin attillium "equipment, gear, Middle English atil (n.), from Old French. Also compare Old French tirelire "money box," which also was used in English. Popularly one made of baked clay and broken open to get the money. Tirelire was imitative or representative of the warbling of a lark, hence tirra-lirra (1610s) as exclamation of delight or words in a comic refrain.

also from 1690s

till(n.2)

in geology, "stiff clay as a subsoil sediment," 1765, originally Scottish, a word of unknown origin.

also from 1765

Entries linking to till

draw(v.)

"give motion to by the act of pulling," c. 1200, drauen, spelling alteration of Old English dragan "to drag, to draw, protract" (class VI strong verb; past tense drog, past participle dragen), from Proto-Germanic *draganan "to draw, pull" (source also of Old Norse draga "to draw, drag, pull," Old Saxon dragan "to carry," Old Frisian drega, draga, Middle Dutch draghen "to carry, bring, throw," Old High German tragan "carry, bring, lead," German tragen "to carry, bear"), from PIE root *dhregh- (see drag (v.)).

Sense of "make a line or figure" (by "drawing" a pencil across paper) is from c. 1200. Meaning "remove or extract (a weapon) by pulling" is from late 12c., originally of a sword. Sense of "to pull (a bowstring)" is from c. 1200. To draw a criminal (drag him at the tail of a horse to the place of execution) is from c. 1300.

Meaning "select one (from a number of lots, etc.)" is from c. 1300. Sense of "bring (a crowd, an audience, etc.) by inducement or attraction" is from 1580s. Of a ship or boat, "to displace (a specified amount) of water," 1550s. In card-playing, "to take or receive (a card)," by 1772; draw-poker is by 1850. To draw out "lengthen, protract" is from 1550s; to draw the line in the figurative sense of "make a limit" is by 1793. To draw blood is from c. 1400.

The difference between [Draw Poker] and Poker is, that the player can draw from the pack as many cards as he may wish,—not exceeding five,—which must be given him by the dealer; but previous to drawing he must take from his original hand the game number as he may wish to draw, and lay them in the centre of the table. ["Bohn's New Hand-Book of Games," Philadelphia, 1850]

toll(v.)

"to sound (a bell) with slow single strokes" (intransitive), mid-15c., probably a special use of Middle English tollen "to draw, lure, attract" (early 13c.), a variant of an unrecorded Old English *tollian, preserved in betyllan "to lure, decoy," and fortyllan "draw away, seduce," a word or element of obscure origin.

If so, the extended notion might be via tollen in a secondary sense of "to work, labor, pull (someone), drag" (c. 1400) and be a reference to the "drawing" on the bell rope. Or the notion might be "luring" people to church with the sound of the bells. A method used for summoning religious congregations or announcing a death or at a funeral, hence by late 16c. it had a figurative association with those qualities.

The transitive sense is from late 15c. Related: Tolled; tolling. The noun meaning "a stroke of a bell" is from mid-15c.

Toll (v.) "draw, lure, attract" persisted past Middle English: " 'Tis a mermaid, Has tolled my son to shipwreck" [Middleton/Dekker, "Roaring Girl"]. It emerged in U.S. dialect as "lure wild animals (ducks, etc.) for capture" (1838). Toll-bait was chum or other minced fish, etc., thrown overboard to lure fish.