From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishcommencementcom‧mence‧ment /kəˈmensmənt/ AWL noun formal 1 [uncountable]BEGINNING the beginning of somethingcommencement of the commencement of building work► see thesaurus at beginning2 [countable, uncountable] American EnglishSEC a ceremony at which university, college, or high school students receive their diplomas SYN graduation
Examples from the Corpus
commencement• Except in divorce proceedings, commencement by petition is now very rare.• Traditionally, societies have specified an age as being appropriate for marriage or union formation and the commencement of family building.• An allocation plan should be given to each student at the commencement of training, setting out the holiday periods.• This then was the works at the commencement of the 1914-18 war.• At the commencement of the tournament it was made clear that referees had been instructed to apply Laws 18 and 19.• Efforts will therefore continue to find a suitable person before the commencement of next term.• Colin Powell was asked to give the commencement address.• It follows that one always knows the commencement date of a Community regulation without going outside the text of the regulation itself.• Contrary to many press reports, however, there was only one, unified, commencement.commencement of• the commencement of the trial 