Startword
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A string of letters that identifies the beginning of a valid sequence in a specified language.
"In fact, a set of metarules and a set of hyperrules is given whose power exceeds by far this example and only the choice of a specific hyperrule for the startword restricts it to this example."
- 2 The first appearance of a genre in print.
"It was the translation of Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, and Virgil that gave English Elizabethan poetry the startword."
Example
More examples"In fact, a set of metarules and a set of hyperrules is given whose power exceeds by far this example and only the choice of a specific hyperrule for the startword restricts it to this example."
Etymology
From start + word.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.