Other forms: launched, launching, launches
To launch something is to send it off with a shove — a rocket off the pad, a lifeboat down the ramp, a new phone into the shops. Smoke, a countdown, and the thing is on its way.
Most of the time you will meet it at work rather than at a spaceport: companies launch products, governments launch inquiries, charities launch appeals, armies launch attacks. The noun is the moment itself — a book launch on a Thursday evening, a launch party, the launch of a campaign. Launch into is a different animal, and it is about talk: to launch into a story is to start telling it at full speed and give nobody a way out. A launch is also a large open motorboat, which is the sense the word arrived with from Portuguese, and it is still what the harbour police go out in.
1verblaunchTo start something big and public — a product, a campaign, an inquiry.~30%
“They launch the new model in September.”
2verbsendTo send a rocket, a missile or a boat off on its way.~29%
“The rocket launches at dawn if the wind drops.”
3nounmarketingThe moment something is first sent off, or first put on sale.~39%
“Her book launch is on Thursday at the shop on the corner.”
4nounlargeA large open motorboat.~2%
“A police launch came out to meet the ferry.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 20 sentences found in the wild and placed 20 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
LAUNCH → LUNCH
You are still eating your lunch when the plate lifts off the table on a line of white smoke, goes straight up, and puts a round hole in the roof.
hooks ontolunch
To launch was first to throw a spear. Middle English launchen meant exactly that — to throw as a lance — and it came in through Old French lanchier from lance itself. Something pointed, thrown hard, gone. The boat called a launch travelled a completely different road, out of Portuguese lancha and, before that, Malay lancar, quick.
Old French
lanchier
Middle English
launchen — to throw as a lance
English, today
launch
From Middle English launchen (“to throw as a lance”), Old French lanchier, another form (fro-nor -/Norman variant, compare Jèrriais lanchi) of lancier, French lancer, from lance.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA