Wordy McWordface
Senior Member
SSBE (Standard Southern British English)
In British English, the word till is the standard everyday term that we use to refer to this kind of object:
But when I look in the WR dictionary till - WordReference.com Dictionary of English, I cannot find this definition.
All I can see is the definition a box, case, or drawer into which the money taken from customers is put, now usually part of a cash register. This is in line with the American English usage, but there seems to be nothing relating to the British sense of 'till', meaning the cash register itself, or - even more broadly- the 'checkout' area of an shop where the till is located.
If this definition really is missing from the dictionary, it's a serious omission. You can't survive in the UK without knowing this word. A tourist buying a bottle of water within minutes of arriving at Heathrow airport will be told to pay at the till. This is 'the till':
It is an absolutely essential item of basic BrE vocabulary, and it really ought to be in the dictionary.
But when I look in the WR dictionary till - WordReference.com Dictionary of English, I cannot find this definition.
All I can see is the definition a box, case, or drawer into which the money taken from customers is put, now usually part of a cash register. This is in line with the American English usage, but there seems to be nothing relating to the British sense of 'till', meaning the cash register itself, or - even more broadly- the 'checkout' area of an shop where the till is located.
If this definition really is missing from the dictionary, it's a serious omission. You can't survive in the UK without knowing this word. A tourist buying a bottle of water within minutes of arriving at Heathrow airport will be told to pay at the till. This is 'the till':
It is an absolutely essential item of basic BrE vocabulary, and it really ought to be in the dictionary.
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