Are till and until the same word?

[Pipbin]

I've always thought that until was the correct word and till was wrong, like when people use cause for because. Both are words in their own right but with different meanings.
However I was reading The Gruffalo today and noticed that it had a 'till' when I would put an 'until'.
Are they the same thing?

(Also, am I the only person left who knows the difference between isle and aisle?

)

Aisle be the judge of that

till1
tɪl/
preposition & conjunction
1. less formal way of saying until.
2. synonyms:
3. until, up to, up till, up until, as late as, up to the time of/that, until such time as, pending; More

Until and 'til are the same - the second is a contraction of the first.

Till (noun) would be cash register and till (verb) is to plough. There are probably our meanings of till, but it is late and my brain is asleep.

Also:

Till, until, 'til. Till, as a variant of until, is a preposition meaning up to the time of. Till—not 'til, an unnecessary abbreviation—has been in the language for centuries, and there's no reason not to use it. To some it may sound less formal than until, but the two words are interchangeable in almost all contexts.

BUT - as SDT also quite rightly says, till is also a noun and a verb.

Basically, till is an acceptable abbreviation of until. Apparently.

'Til is now thought to be a bit archaic (it even gets picked up on spellcheck).

I had no idea it was acceptable, not that I'm going to start using it.