1
[ verb ] take the first step or steps in carrying out an action

Examples

: "We began working at dawn" "Who will start?" "Get working as soon as the sun rises!" "The first tourists began to arrive in Cambodia" "He began early in the day"

Used in print

(Organic Gardening and Farming,...)

Dr._Wilson_C._Grant , of the Veterans_'_Administration_Hospital , Coral_Gables , Florida , and the University_of_Miami_School_of_Medicine , set_out to discover if avocados , because of their high content of unsaturated fatty_acids , would reduce the cholesterol of the blood in selected patients .

2
[ verb ] lay out in a line

Synonyms

lay_out array range

Used in print

(William G. Pollard, Physicist and Christian....)

The tragic irony of the play is that the very belief in and concern with a devil who could be met in the woods and combatted with formulae set_out in books was the very thing that prevented them from detecting the real devil when he came among them .

(Organic Gardening and Farming,...)

I started the seed in a flat in June and set_out the little pansies in a cold_frame .

(John Cheever, "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow,"...)

It bulks under a veil of thin , new grass , like some embarrassing fact of physicalness , and I think Mrs._Pastern set_out the statuary to soften its meaning .

A fire had just been lighted , he saw , and things had been set_out for drinks , and , like any stray , his response to these comforts was instantaneous .

Related terms

arrange compart array

3
[ verb ] leave

Examples

"The family took off for Florida"

Used in print

(Marvin Schiller, "The Sheep's in the Meadow,"...)

Hatless , in an overcoat of rough blue wool , I was given a proud farewell by my mother and father , and I set_out into the strangely still streets of Brooklyn .

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