You’re watching Lingo Phoenix’s word of the day for January 22.

National Answer Your Cat’s Questions Day

Today’s word is start, spelled s-t-a-r-t.

start /stɑːt $ stɑːrt/ verb

start from scratch idiom

to begin from a point at which nothing has been done yet

Nothing like this had ever been done before, so we had to start from scratch.

There were no textbooks, so the teachers had to start from scratch.

make a fresh/new start idiom

to start a new life

Her divorce gave her an opportunity to make a fresh/new start.

She decided to travel back to this country and make a fresh start.

for a start idiom

—used to introduce a statement that is the first in a series of statements

"What was the restaurant like?" "Well, for a start, the food was fantastic."