Definition of "begin"

begin

/bɪˈɡɪn/

verb
third-person singular simple present begins, present participle beginning, simple past began, past participle begun
1. (transitive, intransitive) To start, to initiate or take the first step into something.
  Quotations
  The Apoſtle begins our Knowledge in the Creatures, which lead us to the Knowledge of God, if we will make uſe of our Reaſon: [...]
  a. 1705, John Locke, “An Examination of P[ère] Malebranche’s Opinion of Seeing All Things in God”, in Posthumous Works of Mr. John Locke: […], London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […], published 1706, paragraph 41, page 175
  Ye Nymphs of Solyma! begin the ſong: / To heav'nly themes ſublimer ſtrains belong.
  1712 (date written), Alexander Pope, “Messiah. A Sacred Eclogue, in Imitation of Virgil’s Pollio.”, in The Works of Alexander Pope Esq. […], volume I, London: […] J[ohn] and P[aul] Knapton, H. Lintot, J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson, and S. Draper, published 1751, page 37, lines 1–2
  Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the veranda.
  1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., page 48
  Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.
  1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
  Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.
  2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29
2. (intransitive) To be in the first stage of some situation
3. (intransitive) To come into existence.
  Quotations
  Vast chain of being! which from God began.
  1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: Printed for J[ohn] Wilford, […]
noun
plural begins
1. (nonstandard) Beginning; start.

Definition of "begin"

begin

verb

Quotations

Quotations

noun