in the beginning

1. 1.

   with reference to the origin or beginning

   Synonymsprimitivelyoriginally
2. 2.

   before now

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

   Synonymsin the first placeearlierto begin withoriginally

Questions about in the beginning

What does in the beginning mean?

in the beginning means "with reference to the origin or beginning". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for in the beginning?

Close synonyms include primitively, originally, in the first place, earlier, to begin with. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is in the beginning a common word?

in the beginning is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.