Is it ok to start a car with low engine oil?

I did a oil/filter change on a 2011 Honda Accord 4 cylinder. It calls for 4.4 quarts, but since I didn't know if there was any old oil still left over, I put in 3 quarts first(dip stick showed 3/4 between the dots), started the engine and backed off my ramps. I check again and the oil level is well below the low dot.

Is it ok that I idled the engine for something like 30 seconds with low oil? I mean it wasn't bone dry(had 3 quarts), but it wasn't enough.

Its not good to ever run engines with low oil but if you did it for a small time and didn't warm the engine up that much you should be fine

As long as you have enough oil in there to keep the oil pressure up and the oil light doesn't flash, then you probably haven't damaged anything.

Just you have no margin of spare oil. If you burn a little oil, then drive up or down a really steep hill so all the oil sloshes to the back, the oil pump may start picking up air. Then no oil to the bearings, and bad things happen.

So don't leave it like that. But just starting it and moving it, there would still be oil circulating, so no damage.