Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TILL, v.t. [Sax. tilian, tiligan, to work, to toil, to cultivate, to prepare; W. telu, to strain. In G. bestellen, from stellen, to set, to put in order, has the sense of tilling, cultivating. These words are doubtless of one family.]

1. To labor; to cultivate; to plow and prepare for seed, and to dress crops. This word includes not only plowing, but harrowing, and whatever is done to prepare ground for a crop, and to keep it free from weeds. The Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. Gen. iii.
2. In the most general sense, to till may include every species of husbandry, and this may be its sense in Scripture.