Other forms: initials
Initial means first — the one at the start, before anything has developed. Your initial reaction to bad news, the initial price of a car before insurance and fuel, the initial weeks of a job when you still get lost in the building.
As a noun, your initials are the first letters of your names: A.G., stitched on a towel or written in the corner of a form. That gives the verb, which is what offices mean by the word — to initial a page is to put those letters on it to show you have read it and agreed, smaller and quicker than a signature. The adverb initially means at first, and it almost always sets up a change: initially we said no, then we thought about it. Watch the neighbours, because an initiative is a new plan or the readiness to act, and to initiate is to start something formally.
1adjectiveopeningHappening at the beginning; first.
“Her initial idea was much simpler than what they built.”
2nounletterThe first letter of a name, especially one of the set standing for a person's full name.
“He carved his initials into the desk.”
3verbinitialTo write your initials on a document to show you have seen or approved it.
“Please initial each page and sign the last one.”
Initial comes from Latin initialis, 'of the beginning', built on initium, 'an entrance, a going in'. That word is ineo taken apart: in, 'in', plus ire, 'to go'. So the initial stage of anything is literally the going-in, and your initials are the letters you go in with.
Latin
initiālis
Middle French
initial
English, today
initial
Built from
Borrowed from Middle French initial, from Latin initiālis. From Middle French initial or directly from its Latin - etymon initiālis (“of the beginning, incipient, initial”), from initium (“a going in, entrance”), from ineō (“to go into, enter”), from in (“in”) + ire (“to go”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA