startup
noun
Simple meaning
A new company or organization or business venture designed for rapid growth.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
stahrtuhpSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈstɑɹtəp
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A new company or organization or business venture designed for rapid growth.
The act of starting a new operation or practice
The act or process of starting a process or machine.
computingoften capitalized
A folder (especially in Windows), containing shortcuts of applications or programs that start up automatically after a user signs in.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A new company or organization or business venture designed for rapid growth.
Used this way, startup is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in business or professional contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Business/professional
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use startup
- “Repeated shutdowns and startups are expensive.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- entrepreneurnoun
- innovationnoun
- incubatornoun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.