starter

plural starters

1. Someone who starts, or who starts something.

   The most charitable view taken of them by their colleagues was that, as late starters on the journey away from their Labour past, they had not fully understood that the SDP intended to be something new and not just a Mark II Labour Party […]

   1982, Hugh Stephenson, Claret and Chips: The Rise of the SDP, page 158

   1. The person who starts a race by firing a gun or waving a flag.
   2. ball gamesA starting pitcher.
   3. golfA person employed to take new players to the first tee at suitable intervals, and to provide them with caddies and equipment.
2. Something that starts something.
   1. An electric motor that starts an internal combustion engine.
   2. A device that initiates the flow of high voltage electricity in a fluorescent lamp.
   3. A yeast culture, or a medium containing one, used to start a fermentation process.
3. Something with which to begin; a first property, etc.

   It's small, but it's a good starter house.

4. The first course of a meal, consisting of a small, usually savoury, dish.

   “Starters are the best things at restaurants,” agrees Chitra Ramaswamy, the restaurant critic for the Scottish edition of the Times, who lives in Edinburgh. […] I would never go to a restaurant and not have a starter.”

   2026 June 4, Sarah Phillips, “Always have a starter – and be wary of specials: restaurant critics on 14 ways to order the perfect meal”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: entrée, hors d'oeuvre, appetizer

5. team sportsA player in the lineup of players that a team fields at the beginning of a game.

   Goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga wasn’t a starter at Fulham.

   2024 May 6, Sid Lowe, “Portu’s brilliant burst seals Girona’s top-four fairytale in the perfect way”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

6. A dog that rouses game.
7. UKhistoricalA short length of rope formerly used for casual chastisement in the Navy.
8. abbreviationellipsisrail transportEllipsis of starter signal.

   The colour-light signals admitting directly to the platforms and the inner starters (for short-length departures well up the platforms) are two-aspect, while those immediately beyond them are three-aspect, but elsewhere four-aspect signals have been installed in association with route indicators.

   1961 March, “The new Glasgow Central signalbox”, in Trains Illustrated, page 179