start

Noun

start (plural starts)

1. The beginning of an activity.

   The movie was entertaining from start to finish.

   • Shakespeare

     I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, / Straining upon the start.

2. A sudden involuntary movement.

   He woke with a start.

   • L'Estrange

     Nature does nothing by starts and leaps, or in a hurry.

   • Robert Louis Stevenson, Olalla

     The sight of his scared face, his starts and pallors and sudden harkenings, unstrung me […]

3. The beginning point of a race, a board game, etc.
4. An appearance in a sports game from the beginning of the match.

   Jones has been a substitute before, but made his first start for the team last Sunday.

   • 2011 February 12, Ian Hughes, “Arsenal 2 - 0 Wolverhampton\”, in BBC‎:

     Wilshere, who made his first start for England in the midweek friendly win over Denmark, raced into the penalty area and chose to cross rather than shoot - one of the very few poor selections he made in the match.

5. A young plant germinated in a pot to be transplanted later.

Verb

start (third-person singular simple present starts, present participle starting, simple past and past participle started)

1. (transitive) To begin, commence, initiate.
   1. To set in motion.

      to start a stream of water;   to start a rumour;   to start a business

      • Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

        I was engaged in conversation upon a subject which the people love to start in discourse.

      • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 22, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

        In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.

   2. To begin.
      • 2013 July 19, Peter Wilby, “Finland spreads word on schools”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 30:

        Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting.

   3. To initiate operation of a vehicle or machine.

      to start the engine

   4. To put or raise (a question, an objection); to put forward (a subject for discussion).
   5. To bring onto being or into view; to originate; to invent.
      • Sir William Temple (1628–1699)

        Sensual men agree in the pursuit of every pleasure they can start.

2. (intransitive) To begin an activity.

   The rain started at 9:00.

   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’  […] .” So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking at it.

3. To startle or be startled; to move or be moved suddenly.
   1. (intransitive) To jerk suddenly in surprise.
      • William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

        But if he start, / It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

      • John Dryden (1631-1700)

        I start as from some dreadful dream.

      • Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

        Keep your soul to the work when ready to start aside.

      • 1855, Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, XXXI:

        [...] The tempest's mocking elf / Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf / He strikes on, only when the timbers start.

   2. (transitive) To move suddenly from its place or position; to displace or loosen; to dislocate.

      to start a bone;   the storm started the bolts in the vessel

      • Wiseman

        One, by a fall in wrestling, started the end of the clavicle from the sternum.

   3. (intransitive) To awaken suddenly.
      • (Can we date this quote?) Mary Shelley

        I started from my sleep with horror […]

   4. To disturb and cause to move suddenly; to startle; to alarm; to rouse; to cause to flee or fly.

      The hounds started a fox.

      • William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

        Upon malicious bravery dost thou come / To start my quiet?

4. (intransitive) To break away, to come loose.
   • 1749, John Cleland, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Penguin 1985 reprint), page 66:

     we could, with the greatest ease as well as clearness, see all objects (ourselves unseen) only by applying our eyes close to the crevice, where the moulding of a panel had warped or started a little on the other side.

5. (transitive, sports) To put into play.
   • 2010, Brian Glanville, The Story of the World Cup: The Essential Companion to South Africa 2010, London: Faber and Faber, →ISBN, page 361:

     The charge against Zagallo then is not so much that he started Ronaldo, but that when it should surely have been clear that the player was in no fit state to take part he kept him on.

6. (nautical) To pour out; to empty; to tap and begin drawing from.

   to start a water cask

7. (euphemistic) To start your periods (menstruation).

   Have you started yet?

See also

Noun

start (plural starts)

1. A tail, or anything projecting like a tail.
2. A handle, especially that of a plough.
3. The curved or inclined front and bottom of a water wheel bucket.
4. The arm, or level, of a gin, drawn around by a horse.

Derived terms

• startijenn

Declension

Declension

Related terms

• připravit se, pozor, start

See also

• cíl m

Inflection

Derived terms

• startbaan
• startpunt

Noun

start m (definite singular starten, indefinite plural starter, definite plural startene)

1. a start

   fra start til mål - from start to finish

Verb

start

1. imperative of starte

Derived terms

• omstart

Declension

Derived terms

• startować — verb to start
• startowy — adjective starting, take-off
• falstart (m) — noun false start

Declension

Related terms

Usage notes

As Turks are generally not easily spelling consonants at the beginning of a syllable, this word may often be spelled as [sɯtaɾt].

Declension

Antonyms

• finiş