commence

Etymology

From Middle English commencen, comencen (also as contracted comsen, cumsen), from Anglo-Norman comencer, from Vulgar Latin *cominitiāre, formed from Latin com- + initiō (whence English initiate).

verb

1. (intransitive) To begin, start.
   Here the anthem doth commence: 1601, William Shakespeare, The Phoenix and the Turtle
   His heaven commences ere the world be past! 1770, Oliver Goldsmith, “The Deserted Village”, in The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, London: W. Griffin, published 1775, page 164
   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. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 4, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
2. (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. 1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, page 126
   When we are wearied of the trouble of prosecuting crimes at the bar, we commence judges ourselves […] 1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character, London: Taylor & Hessey, Prudential Aphorisms, Aphorism 15, page 48
3. (UK, intransitive, dated) To take a degree at a university.
   […] was admitted a minor fellow of his college 4 Oct. 1591, a major fellow 11 March 1591-2, and commenced M.A. in 1592. 1861, George John Gray, Athenae Cantabrigienses: 1586-1609, page 272