Search the Dictionary

ing; rise; origin; beginnig; start. The time of Henry VII . . . nearly coincides with the commencement of what is termed "modern history."

A commencement made anew.

ls, and other viscera. In man, often restricted to the part between the diaphragm and the commencement of the pelvis, the remainder being called the pelvic cavity.

The invasion, approach, or commencement of a disease; a fit or paroxysm.

A sharp, flat, or natural, occurring not at the commencement of a piece of music as the signature, but before a particular note.

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.

Origin; beginning; as, the birth of an empire. New birth (Theol.), regeneration, or the commencement of a religious life.

The day in which any person is born; day of origin or commencement. Those barbarous ages past, succeeded next The birthday of invention. Cowper.

The commencement; the first period. The childhood of our joy. Shak. Second childhood, the state of being feeble and incapable from old age.

o an error of a monk (Dionysius Exiguus, d. about 556) employed to calculate the era, its commencement was fixed three or four years too late, so that 1890 should be 1893 or 1894. -- Christian name, the name given in baptism, as distinct from the family name, or surname.

In American colleges and universities, a day of the commencement season on which the senior class celebrates the completion of its course by exercises conducted by the members, such as the reading of the class histories and poem, the delivery of the class oration, the planting of the class ivy, etc.…

Specifically: To distribute, as cards, to the players at the commencement of a game; as, to deal the cards; to deal one a jack.

Having the food yolk, at the commencement of segmentation, in a peripheral position, and the cleavage process confined to the center of the egg; as, ectolecithal ova.

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.

f worth. It is higher than simple approbation, which is a decision of judgment. It is the commencement of affection." Gogan. No; dear as freedom is, and in my heart's Just estimation prized above all price. Cowper.

A large ornamental letter used, esp. by the early printers, at the commencement of the chapters and other divisions of a book. Brande & C.

leaving behind; by reason of; out of; by aid of; -- used whenever departure, setting out, commencement of action, being, state, occurrence, etc., or procedure, emanation, absence, separation, etc., are to be expressed. It is construed with, and indicates, the point of space or time at which the action, state, etc., are…

mcod; -- so called because it is abundant on the New England coast in autumn at about the commencement of frost. See Tomcod.

Beginning; commencement; initiation. Bacon. Marked with vivacity of inception, apathy of progress, and prematureness of decay. Rawle.

Act of beginning; commencement; inception. The setting on foot some of those arts, in those parts, would be looked on as the first inchoation of them. Sir M. Hale. It is now in actual progress, from the rudest inchoation to the most elaborate finishing. I. Taylor.