START-UP

noun Also written startup (Business World) A business enterprise that is in the process of starting up. Also known more fully as a start-up company. Etymology: A more concrete use of the noun start-up, which previously meant 'the action or process of starting up'. History and Usage: This usage arose in US business writing in the second half of the seventies. With the encouragement of small businesses in the UK which marked the enterprise culture of the early eighties, it also became a feature of British business language. Start-up is often used attributively (in start-up loan, start-up scheme, etc.), but in these cases it is used in its older sense of 'the process of starting up (a business)'. The company is a relatively rare thing for Europe: a successful high-technology start-up. Economist 24 Mar. 1990, p. 129 Nixdorf supported the development of a loosely coupled, fault-tolerant multiprocessor technology at a New Jersey-based startup named Auragen Systems. UnixWorld Apr. 1990, p. 39