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IN THE BEGINNING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adverb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Before now
Example:
why didn't you tell me in the first place?
Synonyms:
earlier; in the beginning; in the first place; originally; to begin with
Classified under:
Sense 2
Meaning:
With reference to the origin or beginning
Synonyms:
in the beginning; originally; primitively
Classified under:
Context examples:
This I could do in the beginning: soon (for I know your powers) you would be as strong and apt as myself, and would not require my help.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Studies in mice reveal that the effect of exercise performed in the beginning of their dark/active phase, corresponding to morning, differs from the effect of exercise performed in the beginning of the light/resting phase, corresponding to evening.
(Morning, Evening Exercise Provides Different Health Benefits, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
Now, however, and in the light of that morning’s accident, I was led to remark that whereas, in the beginning, the difficulty had been to throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late gradually but decidedly transferred itself to the other side.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
He argued, that the very laws of nature absolutely required we should have been made, in the beginning of a size more large and robust; not so liable to destruction from every little accident, of a tile falling from a house, or a stone cast from the hand of a boy, or being drowned in a little brook.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Henry's astonishing generosity and nobleness of conduct, in never alluding in the slightest way to what had passed, was of the greatest assistance to her; and sooner than she could have supposed it possible in the beginning of her distress, her spirits became absolutely comfortable, and capable, as heretofore, of continual improvement by anything he said.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Always, in the beginning, before his conscious life dawned, he had crawled toward the mouth of the cave.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late with Mary Ann in the wood; we had, as usual, separated ourselves from the others, and had wandered far; so far that we lost our way, and had to ask it at a lonely cottage, where a man and woman lived, who looked after a herd of half-wild swine that fed on the mast in the wood.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
It broke the ice in the beginning by producing a laugh, it created quite a refreshing breeze, flapping to and fro as she rowed, and would make an excellent umbrella for the whole party, if a shower came up, she said.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
In the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when I tried to get a better understanding of myself and be a better man, I did glance, through some indefinite probation, to a period when I might possibly hope to cancel the mistaken past, and to be so blessed as to marry her.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
So saying, he stepped aside and wrote down a list of several books treating of natural philosophy which he desired me to procure, and dismissed me after mentioning that in the beginning of the following week he intended to commence a course of lectures upon natural philosophy in its general relations, and that M. Waldman, a fellow professor, would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days that he omitted.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
