[f. START v. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the verb in various senses.
† Starting of the navel: umbilical rupture.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. xxx. (1495), 793. A hart … lepyth thwart ouer wayes … and stertyth wyth contrary lepynges and stertynges.
c. 1430. Syr Gener. (Roxb.), 7317. [Generides] stert a-side thoo; In the sterting the knife was nigh.
1602. Archpriest Controv. (Camden), II. 221. Which action, without waveringe or startinge, I did earnestly prosecute.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 713. Starting is both an Apprehension of the Thing feared;… And likewise an Inquisition, in the beginning, what the Matter should be.
a. 1653. Jer. Taylor, Serm., I. i. 8. Thy falshod to God and startings from thy holy promises … shall be laid open before all the world.
1694. J. Pechey, Compl. Herbal, 164. The Starting of the Navel has been cured in many Children, with a Cataplasm made with [etc.].
1798. R. Jackson, Hist. & Cure Fever, 239. Tremors, startings, and the various irregular motions, which often appear in fever, are undoubtedly dangerous.
1801. Ann. Reg., Chron., 44. [He] called to the boatswain to bring a point (a rope doubled with knots at the end), and give the plaintiff a ‘starting.’
1828. A. B. Granville, St. Petersburgh, II. 454. There is, moreover, another species of corporal punishment in the British navy…. It is vulgarly called ‘starting,’ or the ‘rope’s end.’
1850. Newman, Difficulties Anglicans, I. ii. (1891), I. 59. They … relieve their feelings by gestures and cries, and startings to and fro.
1885. Pater, Marius, IV. xx. II. 100. Those noises in the house all supper-time … were they only startings in the old rafters?
b. Phrase, at starting: lit. at the beginning of a race or journey; fig. at the outset.
[1655. Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass., I. xxxi. (1674), 35. Many Charrets appearing at the first starting with new Wheels well greased.]
1834. Newman, Par. Serm., I. ix. 134. It is given you in order that you may find it easy to obey at starting.
1861. Reade, Cloister & H., i. Let me remind him that even Christians loved one another at first starting.
1868. Field, 18 July, 49/1. The favourite, taking a clear lead at starting, made all the running, and won in a canter by a couple of lengths.
1880. Swinburne, Stud. Shaks., 103. None of these had better luck in that line at starting than King Henry IV.
1883. ‘Annie Thomas,’ Mod. Housewife, 144. At starting let me say that [etc.].
2. attrib. and Comb. a. Simple attrib., of appliances for starting machinery, as starting-bar, -gear, -handle, panel, platform, -valve, -wheel; relating to the starting of horses in a race, as starting-gale, -list, -machine, † -stoop; relating to the starting of railway trains, as starting-signal.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Starting-bar, a hand-lever for starting the valve-gear of a steam-engine.
1898. T. Haydon, Sporting Reminisc., 29. There is another Australian invention which has recently attracted some notice in England. I refer to the *Starting Gate.
1867. Burgh, Mod. Marine Engin., 295. *Starting Gear.
1876. Preece & Sivewright, Telegraphy, 131. The receiver has also a switch in connection with the *starting handle.
1898. Encycl. Sport, II. 190/1. (Racing) The Starter’s duties are at present threatened with supersession by the introduction of the *‘starting machine,’ a colonial invention.
1913. J. B. Bishop, Panama Gateway, V. v. 376. In each machinery chamber there is a *starting panel containing contractors by which current is applied to the motor.
1869. Rankine, Machine & Hand-tools, Pl. F 5, The hammer can be regulated and easily worked by one man, at the lever, F, on the *starting platform.
1889. G. Findlay, Eng. Railway, 68. *Starting signals are usually placed at the end of the platform at a station … and they indicate to the driver when he may start his train.
1708. Lond. Gaz., No. 4450/4. The Horses to be enter’d at the *Starting-Stoop 10 Days before the Race.
1865. Bourne, Rec. Improv. Steam Eng., 35. In 1852 I introduced *starting valves.
1867. Burgh, Mod. Marine Engin., 55. The correct locality of the *starting wheel.
b. Special comb.: starting-back Whaling [BACK sb.2] (see quot.); † starting-beer, beer used for the purpose of starting or reviving stale beer; starting-bolt Naut. (see quot.); starting ground, a basis from which an argument or a development starts; starting-note Sc., an extra note or anacrusis at the beginning of a melody, preceding an accented note; also fig.; starting-place, the place occupied at starting by a competitor in a race; the place from which a person or thing starts; starting-point, the point from which a person or thing starts; a point of departure in a journey, argument, narration, development, etc.; starting-post, a post that marks the place from which the competitors in a race should start; also fig.; starting powder Fireworks (see quot.); starting-price, (a) the price at which the bidding at an auction is started; (b) Racing, the final odds on a horse at the time of starting; also attrib. See also STARTING-HOLE.
1820. Scoresby, Acc. Arctic Reg., II. 398. An oblong wooden cistern, called the *‘starting-back,’ is usually erected, for containing blubber.
1742. Lond. & Country Brewer, I. (ed. 4), 23. For brewing common brown Ale and *Starting-beer.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., *Starting-Bolt, or Drift-bolt, a bolt used to drive out another; it is usually a trifle smaller.
1869. Dk. of Argyll, Primeval Man, IV. 145. Man … must always have had instincts which afford all that is required as a *starting-ground for advance in the mechanical arts.
1873. M. Arnold, Lit. & Dogma (1876), 63. The more we meditate on this starting-ground of theirs, the more we shall find that there is solidity in it.
1793. Burns, Lett. to Thomson, Sept. (Globe), 536. The old way, and the way to give most effect, is to have no *starting-note, as the fiddlers call it, but to burst at once into the pathos.
1829. Cunningham, Brit. Painters, I. 275. Most of the songs of Burns … are constructed on the stray verse or vagrant line of some forgotten bard. But then the poet only employed those as the starting notes to his own inimitable strains.
1656. Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass., I. xxxi. (1674), 36. Injustice was used in the inequality of the *starting-places.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. VI. iii. Paris and every City of them, starting-place, course, and goal of said sacrilegious forced march, shall [etc.].
1874. Marq. Dufferin, in Sir A. Lyall, Life (1906), I. 238. Our original starting-place was Quebec.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 510. Runners, who run well from the starting-place to the goal.
1840. Mill, Coleridge, Diss. 1859, I. 403. Every consistent scheme of philosophy requires as its *starting-point, a theory [etc.].
1844. Kinglake, Eöthen, xvii. Here we met in the wilderness at about half-way from our respective starting-points.
1848. R. I. Wilberforce, Doctr. Incarnation, i. (1852), 10. Rationalism makes the individual the starting-point for all improvement, whereas the Church’s starting-point is Christ.
1858. Lady Morgan, Autobiog. (1859), Pref. 8. My original intention was to publish an autobiography from my starting-point on a certain Christmas Day.
1874. Green, Short Hist., ii. § 1. 60. The countries of Scandinavia which had so long been the mere starting-points of the pirate-bands.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 502. A neuro-paralytic hyperæmia … is sometimes the starting-point of eczema.
1758. Johnson, Idler, No. 6, ¶ 8. Let an equestrian statue of this heroine be erected near the *starting post on the heath of Newmarket.
1819. Byron, Juan, III. xxi. All feelings which o’erleap the years long lost, And bring our hearts back to their starting-post.
1852. J. F. Bateman, Aquatic Notes, 41. The starting-posts were 140 feet apart.
1892. Westcott, Gospel of Life, 46. It is as true in metaphysics as it is in physics that the goal of yesterday is the starting-post of to-day.
1910. Encycl. Brit., X. 422/1. Such are the *starting-powder, which first catches fire, the bursting powder which causes the final explosion, and the quick-match [of a firework].
1854. Poultry Chron., II. 127. A great number of the lots were claimed at the *starting price, 5s.
1891. Daily News, 17 Nov., 7/1. The plaintiff was a starting-price bookmaker.
1901. Westm. Gaz., 20 Nov., 7/3. Mr. Hawke promises to bring very telling testimony … before the Select Committee … particularly with regard to starting-price betting.
