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I speak German and I'd usually translate "bis" into "until". However, it occurred to me that the word "until" is almost always used in a temporal context. Or at least much more often than the German "bis", which would be used both in the phrase "from here to there/von da bis dort" and "from now until then/von jetzt bis dann". As far as I can remember, most of the time I read it, until seems to denote a date of something to happen.

Is the word until thought of as belonging to a temporal context, as opposed to an abstract boundary?

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closed as general reference by Daniel, FumbleFingers, Mitch, JSBձոգչ, MετάEd Aug 17 '12 at 5:50


I would suggest first consulting a dictionary; a list may be found at I looked in 3 or 4; all of them defined until as relating to times or events. –  zpletan Apr 13 '12 at 12:43
I think this is general reference –  FumbleFingers Apr 18 '12 at 1:46

3 Answers 3

up vote 3 down vote accepted

to and up to are for broader use like bis.

until is almost exclusively used with reference to time.

For your example, to is better than until even in a temporal context. "From Monday to Friday".

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I agree with your statement that "until" is always used as a temporal adverb, and Leo seems to support my view.

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You are correct. "From here until there" is ungrammatical. "From tomorrow until Tuesday" is OK. You should only use "until" to talk about time.

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