Initiate vs Commence - What's the difference?
initiate | commence |
(obsolete) Unpractised; untried; new.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete) Begun; commenced; introduced to, or instructed in, the rudiments; newly admitted.
* Young
To begin; to start.
* I. Taylor
To instruct in the rudiments or principles; to introduce.
* Dr. H. More
* John Locke
To confer membership on; especially, to admit to a secret order with mysterious rites or ceremonies.
* Bishop Warburton
* Spectator
To do the first act; to perform the first rite; to take the initiative.
To begin, start.
* (William Shakespeare)
* (Oliver Goldsmith)
* , chapter=4
, title= To begin to be, or to act as.
* (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
(UK, intransitive, dated) To take a degree at a university.
* Fuller
Commence is a antonym of initiate.
In transitive terms the difference between initiate and commence
is that initiate is to begin; to start while commence is to begin to be, or to act as.In intransitive terms the difference between initiate and commence
is that initiate is to do the first act; to perform the first rite; to take the initiative while commence is to begin, start.As an adjective initiate
is unpractised; untried; new.As a noun initiate
is a new member of an organization.initiate
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- the initiate fear that wants hard use
- To rise in science as in bliss, / Initiate in the secrets of the skies.
Verb
(initiat)- How are changes of this sort to be initiated ?
- Providence would only initiate mankind into the useful knowledge of her treasures, leaving the rest to employ our industry.
- To initiate his pupil into any part of learning, an ordinary skill in the governor is enough.
- The Athenians believed that he who was initiated and instructed in the mysteries would obtain celestial honour after death.
- He was initiated into half a dozen clubs before he was one and twenty.
- (Alexander Pope)
Antonyms
* (to begin) end, conclude, complete, finishExternal links
* * * ----commence
English
Verb
(commenc)- Here the anthem doth commence .
- His heaven commences ere the world be past.
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.}}
- We commence judges ourselves.
- I question whether the formality of commencing was used in that age.