A starter is someone or something that begins an activity or process.

In sports, a starter is a player who begins the game on the field rather than waiting on the bench. Being named a starter means the coach trusts your skills enough to put you in from the very first whistle. Basketball teams have five starters, baseball teams have nine, and football teams have eleven on each side of the ball.

The word also describes the person who starts a race. At track meets, the starter holds the starting pistol and calls out “On your marks, get set” before firing the gun that sends runners sprinting down the track.

In cooking, a starter can mean the first course of a meal, what Americans usually call an appetizer. British diners might order a soup or salad as a starter before their main course arrives.

The term has another meaning too: a starter motor is the part of a car that gets the engine running when you turn the key. Without a working starter, the engine just sits there silent. In bread baking, a sourdough starter is a mixture of flour and water that captures wild yeast from the air, which bakers then use to make their dough rise naturally instead of using packaged yeast.