Word of the Day

Monday, March 10, 2008

inchoate

\in-KOH-it\ , adjective;

In an initial or early stage; just begun.

Imperfectly formed or formulated.

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Quotes:

Mildred Spock believed that, at about the age of three, her children's inchoate wills were to be shaped like vines sprouting up a beanpole.

-- Thomas Maier, Dr. Spock: An American Life

She also had a vision, not yet articulated, an inchoate sense of some special calling that awaited her.

-- Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature

You take on a project because of the feeling, perhaps inchoate, that it may in some way contribute to your deeper understanding of the larger-scale research program you have chosen as your life's work.

-- Christopher Scholz, Fieldwork: A Geologist's Memoir of the Kalahari

Origin:

Inchoate comes from the past participle of Latin inchoare, alteration of incohare, "to begin."