beginning

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or process of bringing or being brought into being; a start.
2. n. The time when something begins or is begun: the beginning of the war.
3. n. The place where something begins or is begun: at the beginning of the road.
4. n. A source; an origin: What was the beginning of the dispute?
5. n. The first part: The front matter is at the beginning of the book.
6. n. An early or rudimentary phase. Often used in the plural: the beginnings of human life on this planet.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The origin; source; first cause.
2. n. The point of time or epoch at which anything begins; specifically, the time when the universe began to be.
3. n. The initial stage or first part of any process or proceeding; the starting-point: as, a small beginning.

Wiktionary

1. 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.
2. n. That which is begun; a rudiment or element.
3. n. That which begins or originates something; the first cause; origin; source.
4. n. The initial portion of some extended thing.
5. v. present participle of begin.
6. adj. informal Of or relating to the first portion of some extended thing.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. 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.
2. n. That which begins or originates something; the first cause; origin; source.
3. n. That which is begun; a rudiment or element.
4. n. Enterprise.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the first part or section of something
2. n. the time at which something is supposed to begin
3. n. the place where something begins, where it springs into being
4. adj. serving to begin
5. n. the act of starting something
6. n. the event consisting of the start of something