exordium

Borrowed from Latin exordium (“beginning, commencement”), from exōrdior (“I begin, commence”), from ex (“out of, from”) + ōrdior (“I begin”).

• IPA^(key): /ɛɡˈzɔːdɪəm/

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exordium (plural exordiums or exordia)

1. (formal) A beginning
2. The introduction to a paper or discourse.
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 17, in The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     Cicero thinks, in discourses of philosophy, the exordium to be the hardest part: if it be so, I wisely lay hold on the conclusion.

   • 1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked:

     This is a feeble article of faith to begin with, but it helps to push my pen through this exordium and what now follows.

Borrowed from Latin exordium.

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exordium n (plural exordia)

1. introduction, preface (to an essay or plea)

From exordior.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ekˈsor.di.um/, [ɛkˈsɔr.di.ũ]

exordium n (genitive exordiī); second declension

1. beginning, commencement
2. introduction, preface
3. foundation, creation

   ab exordio urbis

   From the beginning / founding of the city

Second declension.

• English: exord, exordium
• French: exorde
• Italian: esordio
• Portuguese: exórdio
• Spanish: exordio

• exordium in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• exordium in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• exordium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • the conversation began in this way: sermo inductus a tali exordio