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

to prearrange unalterably

to decree

to admit into the ministry of a religion, for example as a priest, bishop, minister or Buddhist monk.

to authorize as a rabbi

to predestine