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course of action; to take the first step; to start. "Tears began to flow." Dryden. When I begin, I will also make an end. 1 Sam. iii. 12.

One who begins or originates anything. Specifically: A young or inexperienced practitioner or student; a tyro. A sermon of a new beginner. Swift.

The act of doing that which begins anything; commencement of an action, state, or space of time; entrance into being or upon a course; the first act, effort, or state of a succession of acts or states. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Gen. i. 1.

In process of; in the act of; into; to; -- used with verbal substantives in -ing which begin with a consonant. This is a shortened form of the preposition an (which was used before the vowel sound); as in a hunting, a building, a begging. "Jacob, when he was a dying" Heb. xi. 21. "We'll a birding together." " It was a…

A native of Acadie. Acadian epoch (Geol.), an epoch at the beginning of the American paleozoic time, and including the oldest American rocks known to be fossiliferous. See Geology. -- Acadian owl (Zoöl.), a small North American owl (Nyctule Acadica); the saw-whet.

A regularly recurring stress upon the tone to mark the beginning, and, more feebly, the third part of the measure.

Wanting the beginning. A false or acephalous structure of sentence. De Quincey.

Having each verse begin with the same letter as that with which the preceding verse ends.

The sprout at the end of a seed when it begins to germinate; the plumule in germination; -- so called from its spiral form.

A Hebrew poem in which the lines or stanzas begin with the letters of the alphabet in regular order (as Psalm cxix.). See Abecedarian. Double acrostic, a species of enigma, in which words are to be guessed whose initial and final letters form other words.

ten used to designate an act declaring pardon or amnesty to numerous offenders, as at the beginning of a new reign. -- Act of indemnity, a statute passed for the protection of those who have committed some illegal act subjecting them to penalties. Abbott. -- Act in pais, a thing done out of court (anciently, in the c…

ion; knowledge. [Obs.] How shall I dote on her with more advice, That thus without advice begin to love her Shak.

That part of the duration of a being or a thing which is between its beginning and any given time; as, what is the present age of a man, or of the earth

To commit the first act of hostility or offense; to begin a quarrel or controversy; to make an attack; -- with on.

The person who first attacks or makes an aggression; he who begins hostility or a quarrel; an assailant. The insolence of the aggressor is usually proportioned to the tameness of the sufferer. Ames.

A triple prayer in the sacrifice of the Mass, beginning with the words "Agnus Dei."

A tendency to become alkaline; or the state of a substance in which alkaline properties begin to be developed, or to predominant. Ure.

The repetition of the same letter at the beginning of two or more words immediately succeeding each other, or at short intervals; as in the following lines: - Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved His vastness. Milton. Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields. Tennyson.

The first letter in the Greek alphabet, answering to A, and hence used to denote the beginning. In am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Rev. xxii. 13.

A prefix of one or two unaccented syllables to a verse properly beginning with an accented syllable.