Initiate

How to spell initiate

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce initiate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does initiate mean?

1. verbTo cause a process or action to begin; to set something in motion.
2. verbTo formally admit someone into a group, society, or set of practices, often through a ceremony.
3. nounA person who has recently been admitted into a group or instructed in something specialised.

Initiate in a sentence

• verb

  The board voted to initiate a full review of the company accounts.

• verb

  The lodge would initiate new members at a private ceremony each spring.

• noun

  As a recent initiate, she was still learning the society's customs.

• verb

  A single phone call can initiate the entire refund procedure.

• verb

  Senior staff agreed to initiate the apprentice into the trade's older methods.

• noun

  Every initiate received a handbook explaining the order's traditions.

Where does initiate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb initiare, meaning 'to begin' or 'to admit into a society or set of beliefs'. That verb was built on initium, the noun for 'a beginning' or 'an entrance', which itself came from inire, 'to go in', a compound of the prefix in- ('into') and the verb ire ('to go'). In classical and especially religious Latin, initiare carried the strong sense of admitting someone into secret rites or mysteries, and that ceremonial flavour still survives when we speak of initiating a new member into a club. English took the word in the early 1600s, first in this sense of formal admission and later in the broader, plainer sense of simply starting something off. The same ire ('to go') root quietly powers a surprising family of English words, including 'exit', 'transit', and 'ambition', and remembering that initium means 'beginning' helps fix the single t and the -iate ending.

How the word is built

• in- (into)
• it (from Latin ire, to go)
• -iate (verb-forming suffix)