start

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Cycle at which a subscription or continuity begins, such as the first issue served on a magazine subscription or the first book served in a continuity series. Marketers monitor the start of new customers so that adequate inventory will be produced to fill their orders. Starts are of particular interest to periodical publishers, who monitor the number of new subscribers that start with each issue and can be relied upon to replace those who will expire or cancel each issue, thus maintaining rate base. See also advance start; back dating; preferred start.

verb

1. To go about the initial step in doing (something): approach, begin, commence, embark, enter, get off, inaugurate, initiate, institute, launch, lead off, open, set about, set out, set to, take on, take up, undertake. Informal kick off. Idioms: get cracking, get going, get the show on the road. See start/end.
2. To come into being: arise, begin, commence, originate. See start/end.
3. To bring into existence formally: constitute, create, establish, found, institute, organize, originate, set up. See start/end.
4. To move suddenly and involuntarily: bolt, jump. See move/halt.
5. To draw away involuntarily, usually out of fear or disgust: blench¹, cringe, flinch, quail, recoil, shrink, shy¹, wince. See approach/retreat, seek/avoid.

noun

1. The act or process of bringing or being brought into existence: beginning, commencement, inauguration, inception, incipience, incipiency, initiation, launch, leadoff, opening, origination. Informal kickoff. See start/end.
2. The initial stage of a developmental process: beginning, birth, commencement, dawn, genesis, inception, nascence, nascency, onset, opening, origin, outset, spring. See start/end.
3. A sudden and involuntary movement: bolt, jump, startle. See move/halt.
4. A factor conducive to superiority and success: advantage, handicap, head start, odds, vantage. See help/harm/harmless.

Idioms beginning with start:
starters
start from scratch
start in
start out
start over
start something

See also false start; fits and starts; for openers (starters); (start) from scratch; from soup to nuts (start to finish); get off the ground (to a flying start); head start; running start; to start with.

n

Definition: advantage
Antonyms: disadvantage

n

Definition: beginning
Antonyms: completion, conclusion, death, end, ending, finish, stop

v

Definition: begin; come into existence
Antonyms: complete, conclude, die, end, finish, stop

v

Definition: flinch
Antonyms: ignore

In 1982, under the administration of President Ronald Reagan, a new series of negotiations, the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), succeeded the negotiations that had led to the SALT Treaties of the 1970s. In July 1991, the START I Treaty was signed in Moscow by President George Bush and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. In January 1993, the START II Treaty was also signed in Moscow, by Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Both treaties involved substantial reductions; even so, START I brought the level of strategic warheads down only to about the level prevailing when SALT II was signed, and START II would bring it down to the level when SALT I was signed.

The START I Treaty, signed just months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, could only be ratified by Russia and the United States after agreements were reached with Ukraine and Belarus, also successors to the Soviet Union, that those states would relinquish Soviet strategic nuclear arms on their territory and commit themselves to join the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons as nonnuclear weapons states. The START I Treaty then went into effect in December 1994. Under this treaty, the United States reduced its ballistic missile warheads by about one‐third, and Russia by about one‐half, to totals (not specified) of about 8,000–10,000 for each side.

The START II Treaty is more ambitious, not only providing for considerably deeper reductions but also for the elimination of all MIRV warheads on land‐based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Overall, each side would be limited to no more than 3,500 strategic warheads. Bomber nuclear weapons are also counted on a more realistic basis, and hence its warhead levels were real rather than nominal.

At present, the START II Treaty has yet to be ratified by Russia, not so much owing to its terms (although some Russians object to the need to scrap all existing land‐based MIRV missile systems due to uncertainties with respect to continued U.S. observance of the ABM Treaty and a general deterioration of U.S.‐Russian relations). In addition, the START I reductions, and still more the prospective additional large START II reductions in Russian ICBM systems, pose a heavy burden in dismantling and destroying such systems under START procedures intended to assure verification.

Further reductions in Russian strategic forces, and to a much lesser extent U.S. systems, will proceed even without ratification of START II, given the inevitable obsolescence and the lack of ready replacements. But the elimination of land‐based MIRV systems, especially in Russia, and the large reduction in submarine‐launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), especially in the United States, will not take place for some years unless START II is ratified or until there is at least tacit agreement to proceed as though it had been ratified (as occurred with the SALT II Treaty).

[See also Arms Control and Disarmament; Arms Race: Nuclear Arms Race; INF Treaty.]

Bibliography

• Kerry M. Kartchner, Negotiating START: Strategic Arms Reduction Talks and the Quest for Strategic Stability, 1992

Strategic Arms Reduction Talks

Negotiations to succeed the SALT process, initiated by President Reagan in 1981. The talks made no progress in the atmosphere of the New Cold War, were abandoned in 1983 and resumed in 1985 as President Reagan and General Secretary Mihkail Gorbachev re-established better relations.

The first START treaty concluded in July 1991 between Presidents Bush and Gorbachev reduced each state's long-range launchers to 1,600 and warheads to 6,000, including further important limitations, especially on land-based missiles. In December 1992 Bush and President Yeltsin of Russia signed a second START treaty to reduce each side to about 3,500 warheads, including only 500 land-based missiles each restricted to only one warhead.

START 2 marked the end of the nuclear arms race between the superpowers. Belarus and Kazakhstan had agreed by that time to hand over their former Soviet weapons to Russia, and by 1994 Ukraine had promised to trade its ex-Soviet weapons for Western assistance.

— Peter Byrd

IN BRIEF: To begin something.

It is far easier to start something than it is to finish it. — Amelia Earhart (1898-1937), U.S. aviatrix.

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sign description: The index finger of one hand is placed between the fingers of the other hand and is twisted.

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an important checkpoint in the G₁ phase of the eukaryotic cell-division cycle. Passage through Start commits the cell to enter S phase.

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For a list of words related to start, see:

• Track and Field

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See words rhyming with "start."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Start.

Common misspelling(s) of start

• strat

Dansk (Danish)
abbr. - Strategic Arms Reduction Talks; drøftelser om nedskæring af strategiske våben

Français (French)
abbr. - (abrév = Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) Pourparlers sur la réduction des armes stratégiques

Deutsch (German)
abbr. - Vertrag zur Beschränkung strategischer Waffen

Español (Spanish)
abbr. - Tratado Estratégico de Reducción de Armas

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
削减战略武器会谈

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
abbr. - Strategic Arms Reduction Talks 之縮寫, 削減戰略武器會談

한국어 (Korean)
abbr. - Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (전략 무기 감축 회담)

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