Verb

(ambitransitive) To start, to initiate or take the first step into something.

* (John Locke) (1632-1705)

The apostle begins our knowledge in the creatures, which leads us to the knowledge of God.

* (Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)

Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the veranda.}}

* , chapter=5

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.}}

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=29, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Unspontaneous combustion , passage=Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.}}

To commence existence.

* (Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)

Vast chain of being! which from God began .

Verb

(assum)

To authenticate by means of belief; to surmise; to suppose to be true, especially without proof.

:

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author=(Jonathan Freedland)

, volume=189, issue=1, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Obama's once hip brand is now tainted , passage=Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet. Perhaps we assume that our name, address and search preferences will be viewed by some unseen pair of corporate eyes, probably not human, and don't mind that much.}}

To take on a position, duty or form.

:

*(Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)

*:Trembling they stand while Jove assumes the throne.

*

*:Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability:it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.

*{{quote-news, year=2012, date=August 5, author=(Nathan Rabin)

, title= TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “I Love Lisa” (season 4, episode 15; originally aired 02/11/1993) , passage=So while Ralph generally seems to inhabit a different, more glorious and joyful universe than everyone else here his yearning and heartbreak are eminently relateable. Ralph sometimes appears to be a magically demented sprite who has assumed the form of a boy, but he’s never been more poignantly, nakedly, movingly human than he is here.}}

To take on in appearance; to adopt (a feigned attribute, etc.).

*(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)

*:Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

*(Beilby Porteus) (1731-1809)

*:ambition assuming the mask of religion

To receive or adopt.

*Sir (Walter Scott) (1771-1832)

*:The sixth was a young knight of lesser renown and lower rank, assumed into that honorable company.

To adopt an idea or cause.