English

Verb

commence ‎(third-person singular simple present commences, present participle commencing, simple past and past participle commenced)

1. (intransitive) To begin, start.
   • William Shakespeare

     Here the anthem doth commence.

   • Oliver Goldsmith

     His heaven commences ere the world be past.

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

     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.

2. (transitive) To begin to be, or to act as.
   • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

     We commence judges ourselves.

3. (Britain, intransitive, dated) To take a degree at a university.
   • Fuller

     I question whether the formality of commencing was used in that age.

Antonyms

• cease
• stop

Related terms

• commencement

Translations

French

Verb

commence

1. first-person singular present indicative of commencer
2. third-person singular present indicative of commencer
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of commencer
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of commencer
5. second-person singular imperative of commencer