Word.ws English Dictionary

point of departure

point of departure noun: a starting point, either a physical place or the initial idea or fact from which a discussion, journey, project, or analysis begins.

Noun

point of departure (plural points of departure)

  1. (figuratively, formal) A starting point, either a physical place or the initial idea or fact from which a discussion, journey, project, or analysis begins.
    • […] so “going back to the way things were” is not a useful point of departure.state of affairs, viewpoints at the beginning of rounds of negotiations or discussions in general 2021 January 17, Kathija Yassim, “An experiment in what school could be”, in Mail & Guardian...
    • Its point of departure is the view that conceptions of agency are […]set of presumptions in a line of thought, a theory, Felix Berenskoetter, “Anxiety, Time, and Agency”, in Forthcoming in International Theory, Cambridge University Press, →DOI, retrieved 01 Feb 2021
  2. A dosage level at which additional administration of an agent significantly loses its efficacy.
    • In toxicology, point of departure (POD) is defined as the point on a toxicological dose-response curve […] generally corresponding to an estimated low effect level or no effect level.2017 April 6, “What Is Point of Departure (POD) and How to Use It to Calculate Toxicological Reference Dose (RfD)”, in ChemSafetyPro^(https://www.chemsafetypro.com/Topics/CRA/What_is_Point_of_Departur...
    Synonyms:
    reference point
  3. Synonym of starting point.
    • […] the point of departure is Hong Kong International Airport.2021 January 23, 刘强, “Greater Bay Airlines applies to HKSAR for routes”, in China.org.cn, retrieved 01 Feb 2021
    Synonyms:
    starting point

Synonyms of point of departure

Forms of point of departure

pluralpoints of departure

Questions about point of departure

What does point of departure mean?
Point of departure means a starting point, either a physical place or the initial idea or fact from which a discussion, journey, project, or analysis begins.
What part of speech is point of departure?
Point of departure is a noun.
What is the plural of point of departure?
The plural of point of departure is points of departure.

Words near point of departure in the dictionary

  1. Point of Ayr
  2. Point of Bay
  3. point of care
  4. point of contact
  5. point of contention
  6. point of departure
  7. point of difference
  8. point of divergence
  9. point of honor
  10. point of honour
  11. point of inevitability

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: point of departure (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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