start

{{Roman}}I.{{/Roman}}

noun

ADJECTIVE

▪ auspicious, bright (esp. BrE), decent, encouraging, excellent, fine, flying, good, great, impressive, promising, sound, strong, wonderful

▪

Despite a promising start, we lost the game.

▪ bad, disappointing, disastrous, poor, rocky, shaky, slow, sluggish, uncertain

▪ running (esp. AmE), standing (both often figurative)

▪

The space project went from a standing start to the moon in ten years.

▪ false

▪

After a couple of false starts, she found the job that suited her.

▪ head (usually figurative)

▪

All parents want to give their kids a head start in life.

▪ fresh, new

▪ early, late

▪ very

▪

right from the very start

VERB + START

▪ make

▪

I think it's time we made a start.

▪ get off to

▪

The company got off to an impressive start this year.

▪ herald (esp. BrE), mark, signal

START + NOUN

▪ date, time

▪ button, menu (computing), signal

▪

I clicked the icon in the start menu.

▪ line, point, position

▪

The runners walked up to the start line.

▪

Push through your heels to return to the start position.

PREPOSITION

▪ at the start (of)

▪

Everyone was in a conciliatory mood at the start of the meeting.

▪ from the start

▪

She felt at home in her new job right from the start.

▪ prior to the start

▪

He joined the team prior to the start of the season.

▪ start to

▪

The fine winter weather heralded a good start to the year.

▪ start in

▪

Moving to a good school gave Sally a fresh start in life.

PHRASES

▪ be doomed from the start

▪

The project was doomed from the start.

▪ from start to finish

▪

This is a thoroughly good book from start to finish.

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verb

ADVERB

▪ suddenly

▪

Her heart suddenly started to race.

▪ immediately

▪ just

▪

He has just started at school.

▪

At that point I just started to hate the man.

▪ already

▪ off, out

▪

We'll start off by doing some warm-up exercises.

▪ up

▪

She started up a conversation with the woman sitting next to her.

▪ again, all over again, over (AmE)

▪

We'll just have to start all over again.

VERB + START

▪ decide to, expect to, hope to, intend to, plan to, want to

▪ be due to, be expected to, be scheduled to, be supposed to

▪

Work is due to start this weekend.

▪ be ready to

▪

By early evening he was ready to start work.

▪ be about to, be going to

▪

A new term was about to start.

▪ had better, have to, need to

▪

You'd better start packing if you're to leave early tomorrow morning.

PREPOSITION

▪ as

▪

It started as a hobby and grew from there.

▪ by

▪

Let's start by reviewing what we did last week.

▪ from

▪

Start from the beginning and tell me exactly what happened.

▪ on

▪

I've finished decorating the bathroom, so now I can start on the bedroom.

▪ with

▪

Let's start with this first piece of music.

PHRASES

▪ get (sb/sth) started

▪

It's already late, so I think we should get started.

▪ a good, great, etc. place to start

▪

If you want to learn about frogs, this book is an excellent place to start.

▪ let's start

▪ start from scratch

▪

I'll have to start again from scratch.

▪ time to start sth

▪

It's time to start thinking about next year.

Start is used with these nouns as the subject: ↑ban, ↑bombardment, ↑campaign, ↑car, ↑career, ↑decade, ↑engine, ↑enquiry, ↑exam, ↑expedition, ↑festival, ↑fight, ↑fighting, ↑fire, ↑friendship, ↑idea, ↑letter, ↑meeting, ↑movie, ↑negotiation, ↑pain, ↑period, ↑plague, ↑process, ↑rain, ↑recession, ↑riot, ↑season, ↑semester, ↑shift, ↑siren, ↑story, ↑strike, ↑talk, ↑tear, ↑trail, ↑train, ↑trouble, ↑war, ↑work, ↑year

Start is used with these nouns as the object: ↑argument, ↑ascent, ↑band, ↑blaze, ↑blog, ↑bonfire, ↑brawl, ↑business, ↑campaign, ↑car, ↑career, ↑club, ↑collection, ↑college, ↑company, ↑construction, ↑conversation, ↑council, ↑craze, ↑crusade, ↑cycle, ↑day, ↑debate, ↑deliberation, ↑descent, ↑dialogue, ↑diet, ↑discussion, ↑engine, ↑enquiry, ↑enterprise, ↑evening, ↑family, ↑farm, ↑fashion, ↑feud, ↑fight, ↑fire, ↑firm, ↑foundation, ↑fund, ↑grade, ↑group, ↑high school, ↑hobby, ↑ignition, ↑industrial action, ↑initiative, ↑job, ↑kindergarten, ↑league, ↑lesson, ↑life, ↑machine, ↑magazine, ↑meeting, ↑mess, ↑motor, ↑movement, ↑negotiation, ↑paragraph, ↑period, ↑petition, ↑phase, ↑playgroup, ↑practice, ↑preparation, ↑proceedings, ↑process, ↑production, ↑programme, ↑project, ↑reaction, ↑rebellion, ↑regime, ↑regimen, ↑restaurant, ↑revolution, ↑riot, ↑romance, ↑round, ↑rout, ↑routine, ↑rumour, ↑scheme, ↑school, ↑search, ↑season, ↑session, ↑smoking, ↑society, ↑stint, ↑strike, ↑talk, ↑tape, ↑task, ↑thread, ↑tradition, ↑trend, ↑trouble, ↑venture, ↑war, ↑work