commence

verb

1. (intransitive)To begin, start.

   “Here the anthem doth commence:”

   “His heaven commences ere the world be past!”

   “He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall one, by the by, and then—still minus his trowsers—he hunted up his boots.”

   “Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.”

2. (transitive)To begin, start.

   “The speeches commenced three days of workshops, seminars, and cultural activities.”

3. (Appalachia, intransitive)To begin or start.

   “At dawn we'll commence to drive.”

4. (transitive)To begin to be, or to act as.

   “[…] he furnish’d me with a Gun, Cartouch-box, and Powder-horn, &c. and thus accouter’d I commenc’d Soldier.”

   “When we are wearied of the trouble of prosecuting crimes at the bar, we commence judges ourselves […]”

5. (UK, dated, intransitive)To take a degree at a university.

   “[…] I question whether the Formality of Commencing was used in that Age: inclining rather to the negative, that such Distinction of Graduates was then unknown […]”

   “[…] was admitted a minor fellow of his college 4 Oct. 1591, a major fellow 11 March 1591-2, and commenced M.A. in 1592.”