Word.ws English Dictionary

inaugural

/ɪˈnɔːɡjərəl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ɪˈnɔːɡjərəl/

inaugural adjective: of inauguration; as in a speech or lecture by the person being inaugurated. Also the ellipsis of inaugural address.

Adjective

inaugural (not comparable)

  1. Of inauguration; as in a speech or lecture by the person being inaugurated.
    • The University of Cape Town hosts an inaugural lecture by Professor Ian Scott […] on Wednesday at 8pm.2008 August 21, Cape Times, page 21
    • In 1928 [Martin] Heidegger succeeded [Edmund] Husserl to take a chair at Freiburg and in his inaugural lecture made a pronouncement that earned him a reputation as an archetypal metaphysician with his claim that our awareness of people as a whole depends on our experience of dread in the face of...2014 April 12, Michael Inwood, “Martin Heidegger: the philosopher who fell for Hitler [print version: Hitler's philosopher]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), London, archived from the original on 13...
  2. Marking the beginning of an operation, venture, etc.
    • 2009 was the inaugural season for New York Yankees' new stadium.
    • Canada’s men’s hockey team defeated the USA 3-2 in overtime Thursday to capture the inaugural 4 Nations Face-Off Championship as the NHL put on a show in the first edition of this midseason international tournament.2025 February 20, Homero De la Fuente, “Canada beats Team USA in overtime thriller to win hockey’s first-ever 4 Nations Face-off championship”, in CNN

Noun

inaugural (plural inaugurals)

  1. An inauguration; a formal beginning.
    • The inaugural of the President will take place in March.

Also used as

inaugural is also the ellipsis of inaugural address.

Examples of inaugural in a sentence

  • Taking the inaugural departure of the "Golden Hind" from Paddington, on June 15, as his opportunity, Mr.
  • One of the first 4-H members receives an official club banner during the inaugural meeting in Taoyuan.
  • “We will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer,” Trump declared in his inaugural address.

All 16 example sentences with inaugural

Forms of inaugural

pluralinaugurals

Origin of inaugural

From French inaugural, from inaugurer, from Latin augurare (“to take omens”).

Words formed from inaugural

Phrases with inaugural

Questions about inaugural

What does inaugural mean?
Inaugural means of inauguration; as in a speech or lecture by the person being inaugurated.
What part of speech is inaugural?
Inaugural can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce inaugural?
Inaugural is pronounced /ɪˈnɔːɡjərəl/ (UK).

Words near inaugural in the dictionary

  1. inaudibility
  2. inaudible
  3. inaudibleness
  4. inaudibly
  5. inaugur
  6. inaugural
  7. inaugural address
  8. inaugural addresses
  9. inaugurally
  10. inaugurals
  11. inaugurate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: inaugural (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-inaugural.wav.

Cite this entry: “inaugural.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/inaugural. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.