commence

verb

Etymology: From Middle English commencen, comencen (also as contracted comsen, cumsen), from Anglo-Norman comencer, from Vulgar Latin *cominitiāre, formed from Latin com- + initiō (whence English initiate).

1. To begin, start.

   “Here the anthem doth commence:”

   “His heaven commences ere the world be past!”

2. To begin, start.

   “The speeches commenced three days of workshops, seminars, and cultural activities.”

3. To begin or start.

   “At dawn we'll commence to drive.”

4. To begin to be, or to act as.

   “[…] he furnish’d me with a Gun, Cartouch-box, and Powder-horn, &c. and thus accouter’d I commenc’d Soldier.”

   “When we are wearied of the trouble of prosecuting crimes at the bar, we commence judges ourselves […]”

5. To take a degree at a university.

   “[…] I question whether the Formality of Commencing was used in that Age: inclining rather to the negative, that such Distinction of Graduates was then unknown […]”

   “[…] was admitted a minor fellow of his college 4 Oct. 1591, a major fellow 11 March 1591-2, and commenced M.A. in 1592.”