a baptism of/by fire
a very difficult first experience of something:
I was given a million-dollar project to manage in my first month - it was a real baptism of fire.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Beginnings and starts
- a clean sheet/slate idiom
- advent
- baptism
- beginning
- clean
- commencement
- inception
- initiation
- institution
- introduction
- jumping-off point
- onset
- seed
- square
- starting time
- the outset
- the thin end of the wedge idiom
- thin
- trigger
- zero hour
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