Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The act or process of bringing or being brought into being; a start.
- n. The time when something begins or is begun: the beginning of the war.
- n. The place where something begins or is begun: at the beginning of the road.
- n. A source; an origin: What was the beginning of the dispute?
- n. The first part: The front matter is at the beginning of the book.
- n. An early or rudimentary phase. Often used in the plural: the beginnings of human life on this planet.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The origin; source; first cause.
- n. The point of time or epoch at which anything begins; specifically, the time when the universe began to be.
- n. The initial stage or first part of any process or proceeding; the starting-point: as, a small beginning.
Wiktionary
- n. uncountable The act of doing that which begins anything; commencement of an action, state, or space of time; entrance into being or upon a course; the first act, effort, or state of a succession of acts or states.
- n. That which is begun; a rudiment or element.
- n. That which begins or originates something; the first cause; origin; source.
- n. The initial portion of some extended thing.
- v. present participle of begin.
- adj. informal Of or relating to the first portion of some extended thing.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The act of doing that which begins anything; commencement of an action, state, or space of time; entrance into being or upon a course; the first act, effort, or state of a succession of acts or states.
- n. That which begins or originates something; the first cause; origin; source.
- n. That which is begun; a rudiment or element.
- n. Enterprise.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the first part or section of something
- n. the time at which something is supposed to begin
- n. the place where something begins, where it springs into being
- adj. serving to begin
- n. the act of starting something
- n. the event consisting of the start of something
Etymologies
- Verbal noun of begin. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“It is here contended, on the other hand, that no conservation of any such variations could ever have given rise to the faintest beginning of any such moral perceptions; that by "Natural Selection" alone the maxim _fiat justitia, ruat coelum_ could never have been excogitated, still less have found a widespread acceptance; that it is impotent to suggest even an approach towards an explanation of the _first beginning_ of the idea of”
“But while no hypothesis of development can neutralize or explain away the great geologic fact, that every true species had a beginning independently, apparently, of every preceding species, there was demonstrably a general progress, in the course of creation, from lower to higher forms, which seems scarce less fraught with important consequences to the natural theologian than this fact of _beginning_ itself.”
The Testimony of the Rocks or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed
“He was near the end; nay, rather, near the beginning, according to the saying, _when a man hath finished then is he but at the beginning_. [”
“His record of Supreme Court clerks, including his reported hires for the term beginning in October:”
The Washington Post: Opera-loving justices bring the music to the high court
“She eventually became a leader of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, initially as a founder and then as the first president of the Women's Division, her term beginning in 1956.”
“District Judge Ronald N. Davies decided, and ruled that nine black students be admitted for the term beginning in the fall of 1957.”
The Huffington Post: Eric Burns: The Golden Year of Television News
“The EAA agreement would be for the term beginning in July '07.”
“Iceland, not to mention another I see with the title beginning”
““The man Linda Dale wrote about had a name beginning with the initial J.””
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘beginning’.
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RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
wrath, leaf, belly, prey, death, break, six, nod, dim, end, inn, judge and 1286 more...
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FUN - Beatles song titles
Typical words from Beatles song titles. Can you recreate the titles?
(Grammatical words have been omitted)polythene, Sun King, rhythm and blues, taxman, tripper, monkey business, mailman, matchbox, rock and roll, ooh, blue jay, reprise and 388 more...
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POL - campaign tokenisms
Positive words and vague promises. THE words and expressions to use when you want to win over the masses or just don't know what to say.
"CAPITAL" stands for the administrative capital...21st century, a high level of a..., a long way, a long way to go, a lot to be done, a lot to do, achievement, action, action plan, action team, actual implementa..., advantage and 751 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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Thresholds
we are all just passing through.
(boundaries, portals and liminal spaces/times)cockcrow, interface, thin line, portal, postern, littoral, interstice, port, membrane, skin, crepuscule, dawn and 304 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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savage215's Words
pipe, yankee, knickerbocker, tennis, plasma, magma, volcano, car, truck, television, tv, word and 445 more...
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Theme Prompts
There's a fiction meme (mostly on Livejournal) where writers use words as a prompt for a short story snippet. I've been collecting the words that show up on these lists as prompts for creative writ...
white, black, gray, red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet, queen, king, prince and 407 more...
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TT2 Lesson 13
magnificent, island, remote, major, land mass, archipeligo, consist, inhabit, inhabitant, inhabited, southernmost, Oahu and 82 more...
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TN5 Lesson 53
story, once upon a time, coal, white, wing, shine, shone, all over, miss, beginning, storyteller, such and 10 more...
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Winter
My favorite season.
I love it all, from the silence to the snow.
From the cold to the darkness.
It is for me.cold, snow, sparkle, silent, pitch black sky, bright stars, glowing moon, night halos, music, love, her, longest night and 6 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for beginning.

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