Search the Dictionary

To produce by the union of the sexes; to beget. [R.]

To pass within the limits of; to attain; to begin; to commence upon; as, to enter one's teens, a new era, a new dispensation.

One who makes an entrance or beginning. A. Seward.

To undertake; to begin and attempt to perform; to venture upon. [R.] The business must be enterprised this night. Dryden. What would I not renounce or enterprise for you! T. Otway.

The entering upon; the beginning, or that with which the beginning is made; the commencement; initiation; as, a difficult entrance into business. "Beware of entrance to a quarrel." Shak. St. Augustine, in the entrance of one of his discourses, makes a kind of apology. Hakewill.

One who enters; a beginner. "The entrant upon life." Bp. Terrot.

In French usage, a dish served at the beginning of dinner to give zest to the appetite; in English usage, a side dish, served with a joint, or between the courses, as a cutlet, scalloped oysters, etc.

The act of entering or passing into or upon; entrance; ingress; hence, beginnings or first attempts; as, the entry of a person into a house or city; the entry of a river into the sea; the entry of air into the blood; an entry upon an undertaking.

good fortune of another, or an equal good fortune, etc.); to look with grudging upon; to begrudge. I have seen thee fight, When I have envied thy behavior. Shak. Jeffrey . . . had actually envied his friends their cool mountain breezes. Froude.

The moon's age at the beginning of the calendar year, or the number of days by which the last new moon has preceded the beginning of the year. Annual epact, the excess of the solar year over the lunar year, -- being eleven days. -- Menstrual epact, or Monthly epact, the excess of a calendar month over a lunar.…

A figure by which the same word is used both at the beginning and at the end of a sentence; as, "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice." Phil. iv. 4.

Beginning and ending in a day; existing only, or no longer than, a day; diurnal; as, an ephemeral flower.

A stage in the development of discophorous medusæ, when they first begin to swim about after being detached from the strobila. See Strobila.

A citation from some author, or a sentence framed for the purpose, placed at the beginning of a work or of its separate divisions; a motto.

disclaimed all ambition to match his pastoral pipe. A. W. Ward. At erst, at first; at the beginning. -- Now at erst, at this present time. Chaucer.

A suffix signifying beginning, beginning to be; as, adolescent, effervescent, etc.

ching; to draw upon and bite with acid, as a plate of metal. I was etching a plate at the beginning of 1875. Hamerton.

Without beginning or end of existence; always existing. The eternal God is thy refuge. Deut. xxxiii. 27. To know wether there were any real being, whose duration has been eternal. Locke.

Infinite duration, without beginning in the past or end in the future; also, duration without end in the future; endless time. The high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity. Is. lvii. 15.

d by extreme delicacy, as form, manner, thought, etc. Vast chain of being, which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man. Pope.