Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The initial stage of something; the beginning.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A setting out; beginning; start.
- noun A tidal current running from the land; the ebb.
- noun In Scotland, an inclosure from surrounding moorland or common.
- noun The act of setting off, or ornamenting; that which sets off.
- noun Outlay; primary outlay; also, in the plural, outgoings; expenses.
- To set off; ornament; display properly.
- To put out; set outside.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A setting out, starting, or beginning.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun the
beginning orinitial stage of something
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the time at which something is supposed to begin
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Economics at the outset is a very logical science, and does not declare what is right or what is wrong, it merely offers what have been called "pattern predictions."
Bartlett and Krugman, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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Economics at the outset is a very logical science, and does not declare what is right or what is wrong, it merely offers what have been called "pattern predictions."
Bartlett and Krugman, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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Stating political bias at the outset is therefore seen as being more honest.
Archive 2008-10-01 2008
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Stating political bias at the outset is therefore seen as being more honest.
Blogmarole 2008
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Twitter proves beyond all doubt that designing scalability at the outset is unnecessary.
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So deferring to the river at the outset is only a temporary solution, the first stop on a journey through the Cedarberg frontier.
Belongings: Property, Family, and Identity in Colonial South Africa 2008
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One thing you should know from the outset is that ‘what the police would like the outcome to be’ is no longer relevent.
Kids That Can’t Read Good « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2007
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One thing a designer would have to do at the outset is provide mechanisms that safeguard the integrity of genomes.
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So, if you think that the current plan, which has been contrary to the professional techniques from the outset, is workable, then yes, * you* need to support that idea and enlist.
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Something you notice from the outset is how well it's filmed.
jwjarvis commented on the word outset
Onset is used in phrases that relate to the start (time-wise) of something. The onset of spring; the onset of the football season.
Outset is used more in the sense of beginning (in the sense of making a start). It relates more to the idea of starting something new than to time. I loved him from the outset; from the outset of the war . . .; no one recognized the outset of the depression at the exact time it happened.
If you think of onset more as the time when something started, and outset at its true beginning, regardless of time, you won't go wrong.
September 25, 2010