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The answer

ONSET

5 letters. See every clue for this answer on the ONSET answer page.

Used 209 times across 61 distinct years; most recently in 2026. It appears in 27 publications in the xd corpus. Frequency and last-seen figures come from the xd crossword corpus only.

Other answers for this clue

The same clue has also been answered these ways in the xd corpus. Answers inside this collection link to their own answer page.

• BEGIN (36 uses in xd)
• OUTSET (31 uses in xd)
• INITIATE (20 uses in xd)
• ENTER (10 uses in xd)
• OPEN (9 uses in xd)

Other clues for ONSET

Every other clue in this collection answered by ONSET, most used first.

• Beginning - used 596 times, most recently in 2026
• Commencement - used 109 times, most recently in 2025
• Initial stage - used 66 times, most recently in 2026
• Get-go - used 60 times, most recently in 2026
• Beginning stage - used 55 times, most recently in 2026
• Assault - used 42 times, most recently in 2009
• First stage - used 37 times, most recently in 2026
• Kickoff - used 36 times, most recently in 2025
• Early stage - used 33 times, most recently in 2026
• Inception - used 33 times, most recently in 2026
• Dawn - used 32 times, most recently in 2026
• Attack - used 29 times, most recently in 2023
• First phase - used 29 times, most recently in 2026
• Earliest stage - used 25 times, most recently in 2025
• Beginning phase - used 24 times, most recently in 2026

Related clues

Clues in this collection of the same answer length that share a word with this clue, or match its answer pattern when no word is shared. Most used first.

• Start of a Dickens title - ATALE, used 42 times
• Start - BEGIN, used 36 times
• Start of Caesar's boast - ICAME, used 35 times
• Start of a toast - HERES, used 31 times
• Start of a counting rhyme - EENIE, used 26 times

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