How to Use commence in a Sentence

commence

verb

• The country has commenced preparations for war.
• The festivities will commence with a parade.
• The court commenced criminal proceedings.
• Their contract commences in January.
• The repaving and remake of the street was to commence in 2016.
  — John King, SFChronicle.com, 11 Nov. 2020
• All of the new growth will commence at the top of each cane.
  — Janet B. Carson, Arkansas Online, 24 Apr. 2021
• The work is part of a three-year study commenced in 2018.
  — Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 15 June 2019
• As the evening commenced, the vibes turned up even more.
  — Essence, 3 June 2025
• Only then do the two shake hands, and the match may commence.
  — Smithsonian, 21 Sep. 2017
• The playoffs will commence on the weekend of Jan. 15 with the Wild Card round.
  — Jason Duaine Hahn, PEOPLE.com, 27 Dec. 2021
• Goldberg said Hegseth told the group that the strikes against the Houthis would commence at 1:45 p.m. ET.
  — Caitlin Yilek, CBS News, 24 Mar. 2025
• At the end of the year, once the layoffs had commenced, upwards of 3,300 staffers a month were on such a plan.
  — Paolo Confino, Fortune, 20 Mar. 2024
• The equestrian events will commence in the park of the Palace of Versailles.
  — Naledi Ushe, PEOPLE.com, 11 Aug. 2021
• Tickets for the streams, which commence each night at 7 p.m.
  — New York Times, 8 Apr. 2021
• The breakup is expected to commence in 18 to 24 months.
  — Kevin Dowd, Forbes, 14 Nov. 2021
• Standalone or not, the race to the top is just commencing.
  — Dr. Sai Balasubramanian, M.d., J.d., Forbes.com, 31 Mar. 2025
• The full line from Reading and Heathrow Airport in the west of the city to Shenfield in the east will commence by mid-2022.
  — Siddharth Vikram Philip, Bloomberg.com, 29 Apr. 2020
• The second phase is expected to commence at the end of May.
  — Byrebecca Gelpi, ABC News, 28 Mar. 2022
• Britain commenced a long process of widening the franchise in 1832.
  — David Frum, The Atlantic, 20 June 2017
• But when there’s grilling to be done, a battle still commences.
  — J. J. Goode, New York Times, 13 June 2023
• But when the match commenced, Jabeur injured her right foot.
  — David Waldstein, New York Times, 28 Aug. 2023
• The first race commences at 9:15 a.m. The public is welcome.
  — Baltimore Sun Staff, baltimoresun.com, 6 Sep. 2019
• An avalanche of retweets, reshares, and page views soon commenced.
  — Andy Boyle, Esquire, 10 Mar. 2016
• The contract was signed the next day and the planning with DKG commenced soon after.
  — Georgann Yara, azcentral, 26 Dec. 2019
• And what happened here gives you an idea of what will commence once that gets put in play.
  — WSJ, 21 Feb. 2017
• As the game commences, each player draws and discards a tile, with the aim of getting four sets and a pair.
  — Popular Science, 16 Jan. 2020
• Cates explained the rules a second time, and after a few false starts, the game commenced.
  — Lizzie Widdicombe, The New Yorker, 2 Apr. 2020
• The voting could have commenced at any moment but of course did not.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 20 Dec. 2019
• MacArthur himself called back, instructing them to mark drop zones for B-29 supply runs and assuring them that the drops would commence within hours.
  — Charles Pellegrino, Rolling Stone, 6 Aug. 2025
• But in the mid-1800s, pastry change commenced through a bakers’ strike, spurring a shortage of workers in Copenhagen and ushering in a new wave of Austrian bakers.
  — Carinne Geil Botta, Vogue, 31 July 2025