COMMENCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Commence

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/kəmˈɛns/ Listen

verb

Commence v. t. To enter upon; to begin; to perform the first act of. "Many a wooer doth commence his suit." Note: It is the practice of good writers to use the verbal noun (instead of the infinitive with to) after commence; as, he commenced studying, not he commenced to study.

Commence v. i. (past & past part. commenced; pres. part. commencing)

To have a beginning or origin; to originate; to start; to begin. "Here the anthem doth commence." "His heaven commences ere the world be past."

To begin to be, or to act as. (Archaic) "We commence judges ourselves."

To take a degree at a university. (Eng.) "I question whether the formality of commencing was used in that age."

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Etymology of 'Commence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Commence" Quotes from Famous Books

... believe that Crawford also would have praised it. Neither has Hawthorne valued its expression too highly—the expression of worldly splendor incarnated in a beautiful woman on the tragical verge of an abyss. If she only were beautiful! Here the limitations of the statue commence. Hawthorne says: "The sculptor had not shunned to give the full, Nubian lips, and other characteristics of the Egyptian physiognomy." Here he follows the sculptor himself, and it is remarkable that a college graduate like William Story should have made so transparent ...

— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... of his own country, and that it was the thing of all others which he ought to be best informed on, and thinking most about. So, being of an impetuous turn of mind, he went straight to his rooms to commence his new study, where, after diligent hunting, the only food of the kind he required which turned up was the last number of Bell's Life from the pocket of his great coat. Upon this he fell to work, in default of anything ...

— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... the Prince of Orange was said to be rapidly approaching the town, in order to commence ...

— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... racing up and down of sundry horses; seen the transfer of several baskets of fowl, and peeped into the corn exchange, when he thought it was about time to return home; but as he passed an inn-yard he lingered to see a farmer commence his homeward journey. He was making preparations to start, at the same time boasting how ...

— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce

... once the life of all the Lifes and Souls of a party! Where is that party now? Where am I? What is my life on board? Life!—say existence. I rise early; I can't help it. I am tubbed on deck: deck'd out in my best towels. So I commence the day by going to Bath. [That's humorous, isn't it? I hope so. I mean it ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various

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