commence (English)
Where does "commence" come from?
The word 'commence' descends from the Vulgar Latin *cominitiāre, a combination of the prefix 'com-' and 'initiō,' the same root that gave us the word 'initiate.' It traveled through Anglo-Norman as 'comencer' before entering Middle English, where it eventually evolved into our modern term for starting or beginning something new.
Full etymology tree
- commence (English), 'To begin, start.'
- inherited commencen (Middle English)
- borrowed comencer (Anglo-Norman)
- inherited *cominitiāre (Latin), 'begin, undertake'
- compound com- (Latin), 'allomorph of con-'
- compound initiāre (Latin), 'inflection of initiō:'
- inherited initiō (Latin), 'to begin, originate'
- derived initium (Latin), 'beginning, start'
- suffix -ō (Latin), 'Used to form masculine nouns with various meanings:'
- inherited initiō (Latin), 'to begin, originate'
- inherited *cominitiāre (Latin), 'begin, undertake'
- borrowed comencer (Anglo-Norman)
- inherited commencen (Middle English)
Direct ancestors
Updated July 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris