começar

Portuguese

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old Portuguese começar, *comẽeçar, from Vulgar Latin *cominitiō, *cominitiāre, from com- + Latin initiāre, present active infinitive of initiō.

Related to Catalan començar, French commencer, Galician comezar, Italian cominciare, Romansch cumanzar, Spanish comenzar.

Pronunciation

  • (Portugal) IPA(key): /ku.mɨ.ˈsaɾ/
  • (Brazil) IPA(key): /ˌko.me.ˈsa(ʁ)/
  • Hyphenation: co‧me‧çar

Verb

começar (first-person singular present indicative começo, past participle começado)

  1. (intransitive) to start; to begin; to commence
    Fique quieto, o filme já vai começar!
    Keep quiet, the movie is going to start soon!
  2. (transitive) to begin; to start to do
    Vou começar a lição de inglês falando sobre verbos irregulares.
    I will start the English lesson talking about irregular verbs.
  3. (transitive) to start; to initiate (to cause something to begin)
    Aperte play para começar o vídeo.
    Press play to start the video.
    O acontecimento começou um debate sobre o crime.
    The occurrence started a debate about crime.
  4. (auxiliary with a or por (less common) and a verb in the impersonal infinitive) to begin [to]
    Um pirralho começou a gritar.
    A brat began to scream / began screaming.
  5. (intransitive) to begin (to have a first experience)
    Não sei cozinhar ainda, mas comecei com alguns pratos simples.
    I don't know how to cook yet, but I started with some simple foods.
  6. first-person singular (eu) personal infinitive of começar
  7. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) personal infinitive of começar
  8. first-person singular (eu) future subjunctive of começar
  9. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) future subjunctive of começar

Conjugation

Quotations

For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:começar.

Synonyms

Antonyms

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