Definition of "commence"

Here the anthem doth commence:

1601, William Shakespeare, The Phoenix and the Turtle‎

His heaven commences ere the world be past!

1770, Oliver Goldsmith, “The Deserted Village”, in The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith‎, London: W. Griffin, published 1775, page 164

He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall one, by the by, and then—still minus his trowsers—he hunted up his boots.

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 4, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley

Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 4, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

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

1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar‎, London, page 126

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

1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character‎, London: Taylor & Hessey, Prudential Aphorisms, Aphorism 15, page 48

[…] 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 […]The spelling has been modernized.

1655, Thomas Fuller, “The Seventh Century”, in James Nichols, editor, The Church History of Britain, […], new edition, volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [James Nichols] for Thomas Tegg and Son, […], published 1837, book, page 75

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

1861, George John Gray, Athenae Cantabrigienses: 1586-1609, page 272