set about

set about (third-person singular simple present sets about, present participle setting about, simple past and past participle set about)

1. To initiate or begin some action.

   He set about designing his homepage.

   • 22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Games

     But that’s a dubious triumph: A book is a book and a movie is a movie, and whenever the latter merely sets about illustrating the former, it’s a failure of adaptation, to say nothing of imagination.

2. To attack.

   Two youths set about him.