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initial

Pronunciation: /ɪˈnɪʃ.əl/

The English word “initial” has 6 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Chronologically first, early; of or pertaining to the beginning, cause or origin.
  2. Spatially first, placed at the beginning, in the first position; especially said of the first letter of a word.

noun

  1. The first letter of a word or a name, especially of a person's full name (their initials).
  2. A distinguished initial letter of a chapter or section of a document.
  3. onset, part of a syllable that precedes the syllable nucleus in phonetics and phonology.

verb

  1. To sign one's initial(s), as an abbreviated signature.

Etymology

From Middle French initial or directly from its Latin etymon initiālis (“of the beginning, incipient, initial”), from initium (“a going in, entrance”), from inīre (“to go into, enter”), from in (“in”) + ire (“to go”).

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.