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To introduce by a first act; to make a beginning with; to set afoot; to originate; to commence; to begin or enter upon. How are changes of this sort to be initiated I. Taylor.

Suitable for an introduction or beginning; introductory; prefatory; as, an initiatory step. Bp. Hall.

Initiation; beginning. [Obs.] Sir R. Naunton.

joicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer. Rom. xii. 12. I am beginning to be very instant for some sort of occupation. Carlyle.

the beginning of a contraction or narrowing in a tube or cylinder.

tural reservoirs in hills or mountains by passages having the form of a siphon, the water beginning to flow when it has accumulated so as to fill the upper part of the siphon, and ceasing when, by running through it, it has fallen below the orifice of the upper part of the siphon in the reservoir.

As a demonstrative, especially at the beginning of a sentence, pointing to that which is about to be stated, named, or mentioned, or referring to that which apparent or well known; as, I saw it was John. It is I; be not afraid. Matt. xiv. 27. Peter heard that it was the Lord. John xxi. 7. Often, in such cases, as a sub…

nterruption of level in a piece of brickwork or masonry. From the jump, from the start or beginning. [Colloq.] -- Jump joint. (a) A butt joint. (b) A flush joint, as of plank in carvel-built vessels. -- Jump seat. (a) A movable carriage seat. (b) A carriage constructed with a seat which may be shifted so as to make ro…

of strength; to become wearied or worn out, as with labor; to give out. "The horses were beginning to knock up under the fatigue of such severe service." De Quincey. -- To knock off, to cease, as from work; to desist. -- To knock under, to yield; to submit; to acknowledge one's self conquered; -- an expression proba…

A litany beginning with the words. "Kyrie eleison." Shipley.

h force and swiftness like a sliding from the stocks into the water; to plunge; to make a beginning; as, to launch into the current of a stream; to launch into an argument or discussion; to launch into lavish expenditures; -- often with out. Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. Luke v. 4. He…

ed in making his reply. -- Leading strings, strings by which children are supported when beginning to walk. -- To be in leading strings, to be in a state of infancy or dependence, or under the guidance of others. -- Leading wheel, a wheel situated before the driving wheels of a locomotive engine.

A fast of forty days, beginning with Ash Wednesday and continuing till Easter, observed by some Christian churches as commemorative of the fast of our Savior.

n to a lady, especially an elderly or a married lady; -- much used in the address, at the beginning of a letter, to a woman. The corresponding word in addressing a man is Sir.

lled the mesne lord. Mesne process, intermediate process; process intervening between the beginning and end of a suit, sometimes understood to be the whole process preceding the execution. Blackstone. Burrill. -- Mesne profits, profits of premises during the time the owner has been wrongfully kept out of the possessio…

5. There is nothing... in the midst [of the play] which might not have been placed in the beginning. Dryden.

." Rom. xii. 19. Also, in the old style, used attributively, instead of my, before a noun beginning with a vowel. I kept myself from mine iniquity. Ps. xviii. 23.

State of being nascent; birth; beginning; origin.

Commencing, or in process of development; beginning to exist or to grow; coming into being; as, a nascent germ. Nascent passions and anxieties. Berkley.

All that architecture which, since the beginning of the Italian Renaissance, about 1420, has been designed with deliberate imitation of Greco-Roman buildings.