commence

verb4

1. •
   To begin, start.

   • His heaven commences ere the world be past! — 1770
2. •
   (Appalachia) To begin or start.

   • At dawn we'll commence to drive.
3. •
   To begin to be, or to act as.

   • […] he furnish’d me with a Gun, Cartouch-box, and Powder-horn, &c. and thus accouter’d I commenc’d Soldier. — 1743
4. •
   (UK, old-fashioned) To take a degree at a university.

   • […] I question whether the Formality of Commencing was used in that Age: inclining rather to the negative, that such Distinction of Graduates was then unknown […] — 1655