Verb

(commenc)

To begin, start.

* (William Shakespeare)

Here the anthem doth commence .

* (Oliver Goldsmith)

His heaven commences ere the world be past.

* , chapter=4

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=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.}}

To begin to be, or to act as.

* (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

We commence judges ourselves.

(UK, intransitive, dated) To take a degree at a university.

* Fuller

I question whether the formality of commencing was used in that age.

Verb

(en verb)

To occur or take place.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)

, volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic who still resists the idea that something drastic needs to happen for him to turn his life around.}}

To occur unexpectedly, by chance or with a low probability.

To encounter by chance.

* 1860 , , The Marble Faun , ch. 30:

Unexpectedly, in a nook close by the farmhouse, he happened upon a spot where the vintage had actually commenced.