empezó

Empezó is the third-person singular preterite (simple past) form of the Spanish verb empezar, meaning to begin or to start. It translates to "he began" or "she began," and in formal address it corresponds to "usted empezó." The form is used to refer to a completed action in the past or to describe the onset of an activity that occurred previously. For example, "La película empezó a las ocho" means "The movie began at eight," and "Él empezó a estudiar" means "He began studying."

In terms of conjugation, empezar shows a stem change in the present tense (empieza, empiezan) but in the preterite the third-person singular is "empezó," with the accent on the final syllable. Spelling in the preterite first-person singular is "empecé," with a "c" to preserve the hard /k/ sound before "e" in that form; the third-person singular remains "empezó." The full preterite forms are: empecé, empezaste, empezó, empezamos, empezasteis, empezaron.

Etymology: empezar comes from the Romance language development related to Latin incipere, meaning to begin; the modern verb in Spanish developed through medieval forms and the suffix -zar to form the infinitive. The term "empezó" therefore is the past-tense form of a verb with a long history in Spanish.

See also: empezar; pretérito perfecto simple; comenzar.