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hting) To step up to the scratch or mark made in the ring to be toed by the combatants in beginning a contest; hence: (b) To meet an antagonist or a difficulty bravely. [Colloq.] -- To come to time. (a) (Prize Fighting) To come forward in order to resume the contest when the interval allowed for rest is over and "time"…

Entrance; entrance way; manner of entering; beginning. "The goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof." Ezek. xliii. 11

To have a beginning or origin; to originate; to start; to begin. Here the anthem doth commence. Shak. His heaven commences ere the world be past. Goldsmith.

The first existence of anything; act or fact of commencing; rise; origin; beginnig; start. The time of Henry VII . . . nearly coincides with the commencement of what is termed "modern history."

s journey. 2 Kings iii. 9. This day I breathed first; time is come round, And where I did begin, there shall I end; My life is run his compass. Shak.

To receive into the womb and begin to breed; to begin the formation of the embryo of. She hath also conceived a son in her old age. Luke i. 36.

The state of being conceived; beginning. Joy had the like conception in our eyes. Shak.

ether; to settle or adjust by conference, agreement, or consultation. It was concerted to begin the siege in March. Bp. Burnet.

The place or point of meeting or junction of two bodies. [Obs.] The drop will begin to move toward the concourse of the glasses. Sir I. Newton.

. For all that pleasing is to living ears Was there consorted in one harmony. Spenser. He begins to consort himself with men. Locke.

To recover health and strength gradually, after sickness or weakness; as, a patient begins to convalesce.

A manger or open frame for hay; a crib; a rack. [Obs.] Begin from first where He encradled was, In simple cratch, wrapt in a wad of hay. Spenser. Cratch cradle, a representation of the figure of the cratch, made upon the fingers with a string; cat's cradle; -- called also scratch cradle.

To bring into being; to form out of nothing; to cause to exist. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Gen. i. 1.

tence. From the creation to the general doom. Shak. As when a new particle of matter dotn begin to exist, in rerum natura, which had before no being; and this we call creation. Locke.

To become crimson; to blush. Ancient towers . . . beginning to crimson with the radiant luster of a cloudless July morning. De Quincey.

To criticise; to play the critic. [Obs.] Nay, if you begin to critic once, we shall never have done. A. Brewer.

ts, and retire to rest, -- instituted by William the Conqueror; also, the bell itself. He begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock. Shak. The village curfew, as it tolled profound. Campbell.

ing. -- The curtain falls, the performance closes. -- The curtain rises, the performance begins. -- To draw the curtain, to close ot over an object, or to remove it; hence: (a) To hide or to disclose an object. (b) To commence or close a performance. -- To drop the curtain, to end the tale, or close the performance.…

The beginning or first entrance of any house in the calculations of nativities, etc.

, etc., cut unequal lengths. Now draweth cut . . . The which that hath the shortest shall begin. Chaucer.