Commence

How to spell commence

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce commence

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does commence mean?

1. verbTo begin or start something, often in a formal or official context.

Commence in a sentence

• The building works will commence on the first of March.

• The chairman asked the meeting to commence promptly at nine.

Where does commence come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travels into English from Old French comencier, which descends from an unrecorded Vulgar Latin verb cominitiare. That Latin form was built from the prefix com-, meaning 'together' or simply adding emphasis, joined to initiare, 'to begin' or 'to initiate', which itself comes from initium, meaning 'a beginning' or 'an entrance'. So at its root the word literally carried the idea of formally entering upon or setting something in motion. English adopted it in the 1300s as a slightly more formal alternative to the plain Germanic word 'begin', and that formal flavour survives today in legal and ceremonial use. The shared initium root also links commence to 'initial' and 'initiate', and the double 'm' in the spelling reflects the assimilated com- prefix that learners sometimes drop to a single letter.

How the word is built

• com- (together, intensive)
• -mence (from Latin initiare, to begin, via Vulgar Latin cominitiare)