start off

English

Verb

start off (third-person singular simple present starts off, present participle starting off, simple past and past participle started off)

1. To begin.

   She started off with a lullaby.

2. To set out on a trip.

   They started off on horseback.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less disturbing.

3. To instigate someone to laugh or cry or to begin talking about something they often talk about.

   Don't start him off about that again.

Derived terms

• start off on the right foot
• start off on the wrong foot
• to start off with