start

The movie was entertaining from start to finish.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, / Straining upon the start.

1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

He woke with a start.

Nature does nothing by starts and leaps, or in a hurry.

1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:

The sight of his scared face, his starts and pallors and sudden harkenings, unstrung me […]

Captured pieces are returned to the start of the board.

The beginning point of a race, a board game, etc.

Jones has been a substitute before, but made his first start for the team last Sunday.

Wilshere, who made his first start for England in the midweek friendly win over Denmark, raced into the penalty area and chose to cross rather than shoot - one of the very few poor selections he made in the match.

2011 February 12, Ian Hughes, “Arsenal 2 - 0 Wolverhampton”, in BBC:

An appearance in a sports game, horserace, etc., from the beginning of the event.

You generally see nursery starts at garden centres in mid to late spring. Small annual plants are generally sold in four-packs or larger packs, with each cell holding a single young plant.

2009, Liz Primeau, Steven A. Frowine, Gardening Basics For Canadians For Dummies:

(horticulture) A young plant germinated in a pot to be transplanted later.

to get, or have, the start

An initial advantage over somebody else; a head start.

“It's a rum start, old John Madingley's coming down to Tunnleton,” said Grafton, one evening in the smoking-room; […]

1887, Hawley Smart, A False Start, volume 2, page 69:

(UK, slang, archaic) A happening or proceeding.

→ German: Start

→ Persian: استارت (estârt)

титуляр

appearance in a sports game from the beginning of the match

istukas

horticulture: young plant germinated in a pot to be transplanted later

From Middle English stert, from the verb sterten (“to start, startle”). See below.


start

to start a stream of water; to start a rumour; to start a business

I was some years ago engaged in conversation with a fashionable French Abbe, upon a subject which the people of that kingdom love to start in discourse.

April 2, 1716, Joseph Addison, Freeholder No. 30

In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

(transitive) To begin, commence, initiate.

To begin, commence, initiate.
To set in motion.

The President fired the gun to start the footrace.

Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting.

2013 July 19, Peter Wilby, “Finland spreads word on schools”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 30:

to start the engine

To ready the operation of a vehicle or machine.

To ready the operation of a vehicle or machine.

en:to initiate operation of a vehicle or machine

To put or raise (a question, an objection); to put forward (a subject for discussion).

Sensual men agree in the pursuit of every pleasure they can start.

1674, William Temple, letter to The Countess of Essex:

To bring onto being or into view; to originate; to invent.

The rain started at 9:00.

Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ […].” So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking at it.

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

The speed limit is 50 km/h, starting at the edge of town.

The blue line starts one foot away from the wall.

(intransitive) To have its origin (at), begin.

But if he start,
 It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene v]:

I could a Tale vnfold, vvhoſe lighteſt vvord
 VVould harrovv vp thy ſoule, freeze thy young blood,
 Make thy tvvo eyes like Starres, ſtart from their Spheres,
 Thy knotty and combined locks to part,
 And each particular haire to ſtand an end,
 Like Quilles vpon the fretfull Porpentine: […]

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v], page 257, column 2:

I start as from some dreadful dream.

1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Fryar: Or, the Double Discovery. […], London: […] Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page number):

Keep your soul to the work when it is ready to start aside.

1725, Isaac Watts, Logick: Or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth, […], 2nd edition, London: […] John Clark and Richard Hett, […], Emanuel Matthews, […], and Richard Ford, […], published 1726, →OCLC:

[...] The tempest's mocking elf
 Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf
 He strikes on, only when the timbers start.

1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section XXXI:

Suddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of the portrait, and he started.

1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter VIII, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London, New York, N.Y., Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC, page 139:

To startle or be startled; to move or be moved suddenly.

(intransitive) To jerk suddenly in surprise.

I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; [...]

1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter IV, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 100:

The hounds started a fox.

Upon malicious bravery dost thou come
 To start my quiet?

c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

(transitive) To disturb and cause to move suddenly; to startle; to alarm; to rouse; to cause to flee or fly.

Physical poison would make them start from arsenicked bread; shall not the moral poison which is in it, make them start more promptly still from slave produce?

1836, Elizur Wright, Quarterly Anti-slavery Magazine, volume 2, page 162:

to start a bone; the storm started the bolts in the vessel

One, by a fall in wrestling, started the end of the clavicle from the sternon.

1676, Richard Wiseman, Severall Chirurgicall Treatises, London: […] E. Flesher and J. Macock, for R[ichard] Royston […], and B[enjamin] Took, […], →OCLC:

(transitive) To move suddenly from its place or position; to displace or loosen; to dislocate.

[...] we could, with the greateſt eaſe, as well as clearneſs, ſee all objects, (ourſelves unſeen) only by applying our eyes cloſe to the crevice, where the moulding of a pannel had warp'd, or ſtarted a little on the other ſide.

1749, [John Cleland], “[Letter the First]”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume I, London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC, page 76:

(intransitive) To break away, to come loose.

The charge against Zagallo then is not so much that he started Ronaldo, but that when it should surely have been clear that the player was in no fit state to take part he kept him on.

2010, Brian Glanville, The Story of the World Cup: The Essential Companion to South Africa 2010, London: Faber and Faber, →ISBN, page 361:

“Look at Portu,” Michel insisted, “he scores goals and I never start him. He says: ‘You’re sinking me, but OK, I’ll just go out and score again.’”

2024 May 6, Sid Lowe, “Portu’s brilliant burst seals Girona’s top-four fairytale in the perfect way”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

to start a water cask

(transitive, nautical) To pour out; to empty; to tap and begin drawing from.

Have you started yet?

(intransitive, euphemistic) To start one's periods (menstruation).

en-verb

start (third-person singular simple present starts, present participle starting, simple past and past participle started)

starts (present singular third-person)
starting (participle present)
started (participle past)
started (past)

when the looting starts, the shooting starts

→ Cantonese: 撻 /挞 (taat¹)

→ Dutch: starten

→ German: starten

→ Norman: stèrter

→ French: starter

→ Icelandic: starta

→ Faroese: starta

→ Norwegian Bokmål: starte

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: starta

→ Swedish: starta

→ Danish: starte

→ Slovak: štartovať

aangaan

to initiate operation of a vehicle or machine

beginnen

to put or raise a question or objection, to put forward

From Middle English sterten (“to leap up suddenly, rush out”), from Old English styrtan (“to leap up, start”), from Proto-West Germanic *sturtijan (“to startle, move, set in motion”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ter- (“to be stiff”). Cognate with Old Frisian stirta (“to fall down, tumble”), Middle Dutch sterten (“to rush, fall, collapse”) (Dutch storten), Old High German sturzen (“to hurl, plunge, turn upside down”) (German stürzen), Old High German sterzan (“to be stiff, protrude”). More at stare.

inh

Old English styrtan (“to leap up, start”)

der

Proto-Indo-European *(s)ter- (“to be stiff”)

cog

Old Frisian stirta (“to fall down, tumble”)


start

A projection or protrusion; that which pokes out.

The fall of water is 6 feet, and the radius of the curve is 8 feet, from the centre of the water-wheel to the extreme point of the start.

1845, Captain R.E. Crawley, Description of a Water-Course, Wharf, and Water-Wheel, erected at Waltham Abbey, Essex […] :

The curved or inclined front and bottom of a water wheel bucket.

The arm, or level, of a gin, drawn around by a horse.

From Middle English stert, start (“tail, handle, projection”), from Old English steort, from Proto-West Germanic *stert, from Proto-Germanic *stertaz (“tail”). Cognate with Scots start, stairt (“side-post, shaft, upright post”), Dutch staart (“tail”), German Sterz (“tail, handle”), Swedish stjärt (“tail, arse”).


start

Col.—The age has no sense—the people are start mad—as mad as a March mare. We should have fine times, indeed if our laws did'nt compel the poor people to protect the property of the rich.

1828 August 22, “Militia System”, in The New England Farmer, volume VII, Boston, M.A.: John B. Russell, published 1829, page 40, column 1:

(dialectal, archaic) Completely, utterly.

en-adv

start (comparative more start, superlative most start)

more start (comparative)
most start (superlative)