IN THE BEGINNING

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does in the beginning mean? 

• IN THE BEGINNING (adverb)
  The adverb IN THE BEGINNING has 2 senses:

1. with reference to the origin or beginning

2. before now

  Familiarity information: IN THE BEGINNING used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IN THE BEGINNING (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

With reference to the origin or beginning

Synonyms:

in the beginning; originally; primitively

Sense 2

Meaning:

Before now

Synonyms:

earlier; in the beginning; in the first place; originally; to begin with

Context example:

why didn't you tell me in the first place?

 Context examples 

In the matter of meat, his luck had been all in the beginning.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Everingham could not do without him in the beginning of September.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of difficulty.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But in giving an account of the progress of my intellect, I must not omit a circumstance which occurred in the beginning of the month of August of the same year.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The very best parts of this month will happen toward the end of the month, but in the beginning, you will get a chance to catch your breath.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Then he tried an opera, for nothing seemed impossible in the beginning, but here again unforeseen difficulties beset him.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I have shown the reader in the beginning of this narrative where lay the springs of my action.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the beginning, your dentist may want to see you often to make sure the dentures fit.

(Dentures, NIH: National Institute on Aging)

After listening to this full description of Mr Elliot, Anne could not but express some surprise at Mrs Smith's having spoken of him so favourably in the beginning of their conversation.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

It was a cold, bleak morning in the beginning of March, and the mist was drifting in dense rolling clouds through the passes of the Cantabrian mountains.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)