outset

UK/ˈaʊtsɛt/US/ˈaʊtsɛt/

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #11,865 of 15,258leans written

The outset is the very beginning of something. From the outset, at the outset, doubts were raised at the outset.

It appears almost only in those two fixed phrases, and from the outset is by far the commoner. It is formal, and its usefulness is in argument: saying something was clear from the outset means nobody can claim to have been surprised. It takes the and no other determiner — his outset is wrong. Compare beginning, which is the neutral everyday word, and inception, which is even more formal and belongs to organisations and projects.

Definitions of outset

1nounoutsetThe very beginning of something.C1
“It was obvious from the outset that it would not work.”
synonyms: beginning, start, inception

outset is a beginning.

Also accepted in games: start

Where it comes from

Middle English
setten
English
set
English, today
outset

Built from

*sed- · Proto-Indo-European — to sit

From out + set, replacing earlier outsetting. set comes from Middle English setten. From Middle English setten, from Old English settan, from Proto-West Germanic sattjan, from Proto-Germanic satjaną, from Proto-Indo-European sodéyeti, causative of sed- (“to sit”). Cognate with Dutch zetten, German setzen, Danish sætte, Norwegian Bokmål sette, Icelandic and Norwegian Nynorsk setja, Swedish sätta, Faroese seta.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Big Ideas, Phrasal Verbs

Practise this word

outset in the wild

Following the German and Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, Polish Jews were targeted from the outset.
Ghetto uprisings
The region acquired a noble status from the outset and retains higher concentration of wealthy residents.
Freguesia (Jacarepaguá)
The Europeans were involved in the Bombay tournament from its outset in 1877, when they accepted a challenge from the Parsis cricket team to a two-day match.
Europeans cricket team
At its outset Dustin was carried in more than 100 newspapers nationwide, and by October 2010 it had expanded to 300.
Dustin (comic strip)
Founded in 1968, at the outset the Frost had three competitors that catered to Fort Wayne's minority community.
Frost Illustrated

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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