begin

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“
Once you pass South 70th Street, business signs in English begin to diminish, being replaced by those in Asian and Spanish.

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Definitions (31)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (7)

  1. intransitive verb To take the first step in performing an action; start.
  2. intransitive verb To come into being: when life began.
  3. intransitive verb To do or accomplish in the least degree: Those measures do not even begin to address the problem.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (10)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

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Examples (50)

  • I was obliged to begin, and yet I did not know a word of the formula with which they always commence their confessions. —  Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle
  • As the tour was about to begin, the alien scuttled up. —  F ;SF; - vol 089 issue 02 - August 1995
  • But Katie was too shy to begin, and sometimes they would wait for several minutes before she had courage to say a few words. —  Catherine Booth: A Sketch
  • To begin, then, I was born in Dunfermline, in the attic of the small one-story house, corner of Moodie Street and Priory Lane, on the 25th of November, 1835, and, as the saying is, “of poor but honest parents, of good kith and kin.” Dunfermline had long been noted as the center of the damask trade in Scotland. —  Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
  • It is here that my earliest recollections begin, and, strangely enough, the first trace of memory takes me back to a day when I saw a small map of America. —  Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

commencement ·  start ·  midst ·  possibility ·  aspect ·  series ·  prospect ·  conclusion ·  outcome ·  end ·  progress ·  portion

Used in the same contextWord Family

begin:   began ·  beginning ·  begun ·  begins
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English biginnen, from Old English beginnan.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English beginnen, biginnen (preterit began, begon, plural begunne, begunnen, begonne, etc., past participle begunnen, begonnen, begunne, etc.), from Anglo-Saxon beginnan, biginnan (preterit began, plural begunnon, past participle begunnen) = Old Saxon biginnan = OFries. beginna, bejenna = Dutch beginnen = Old High German biginnan, Middle High German G. beginnen, begin; Anglo-Saxon more commonly onginnan, rarely āginnan, Middle English aginnen, and by apheresis ginnen, modern English obsolete or poetical gin; also with still different prefixes, Old High German inginnan, enginnen, and Gothic (Moesogothic) duginnan, begin; from be- (English be-) or on-, ā- (English a), + ginnan, not found in the simple form, prob. orig. ‘open, open up’ (a sense retained also by the Old High German inginnan, Middle High German enginnen), being prob. connected with (a) Anglo-Saxon ginian = Old High German ginēn, Middle High German ginen, genen, German gähnen, gape, yawn, (b) Anglo-Saxon gīnan = Icelandic gīna, gape, yawn, (c) Anglo-Saxon gānian, English yawn = Old High German geinōn, Middle High German geinen, gape, yawn (cf. Greek χαίνειν, gape, yawn); all variously with n- formative from the root *gi, seen also in Old High German gīēn and giwēn, gewōn, Middle High German giwen, gewen = Latin hiare = Old Bulgarian zijati = Russian zijatĭ = Bohemian zivati = Lithuanian zhioti, etc., gape, yawn (cf. Greek χάσκειν, yawn, χάος, chaos, χάσμα, chasm, etc.: see chaos, chasm): see yawn and hiatus. Cf. open as equivalent to begin, and close as equivalent to end.
  2. from begin, v.
 

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/bəˈgɪn/
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