exordium

noun

1. (formal)A beginning.
2. The introduction to an essay or discourse.

   “Cicero thinks, in discourses of philosophy, the exordium to be the hardest part: if it be so, I wisely lay hold on the conclusion.”

   “The depreciation of her produce was next insisted upon; and I found this exordium led to the information that Messrs. Standish and Co. had been enabled, from the depressed state of the market, to lay in a large stock of Irish linen at unheard-of low prices.”

   “This is a feeble article of faith to begin with, but it helps to push my pen through this exordium and what now follows.”