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

To gain, win, or get possession of.

*1790 , The plays and poems of William Shakspeare:

His belme to bewin was in twenty places, [...]

*1855 , New York State United Teachers, United Federation of Teachers, New York Teacher: UFT bulletin :

[...] A word to you in and for the Teacher—that is, the NY Teacher—-not that it will be likely to bewin or interest even you much, but it will be a moral relief to me.