start-up

noun

ˈstärt-ˌəp 

variants or startup

often attributive

1

: the act or an instance of setting in operation or motion

2

: a fledgling business enterprise

Examples of start-up in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

For its part, Virgin has put its money where its mouth is by funding female start-up founders, who have long received disproportionately less funding than male founders. —Rachel Rabkin Peachman, Forbes, 29 Oct. 2024

Just last week, Casey, who's based in Washington, D.C., flew across the country to meet with Fields and technology researchers at the University of California, Berkeley -- some of whom expressed concern that the U.S. government might end up stifling start-up companies in its drive to protect them. —Mike Levine, ABC News, 29 Oct. 2024

The Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga parent company launched the Kering Generation Award to honor start-ups focused on sustainability in the fashion space and encourage new thinking about the way the fashion industry produces clothing and uses resources. —Rhonda Richford, WWD, 29 Oct. 2024

Sierra, a start-up from former Salesforce executive and OpenAI chair Bret Taylor and ex-Google exec Clay Bavor, has been focused on AI agents from the start, while Salesforce, Google and others have been heavily touting the approach only in recent weeks. —Ina Fried, Axios, 21 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1845, in the meaning defined at sense 1