Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The condition of being incipient; beginning; commencement.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Beginning; commencement; incipient state.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A beginning, or first stage

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun beginning to exist or to be apparent

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin incipientia.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word incipience.

Examples

  • The original score, all a-throb with scary incipience, was composed by David Wingo.

    '50/50': Cheerful Illness Tale, With Relapses Joe Morgenstern 2011

  • Her teenage daughter, Mandy Ashley Rickards, is autistic, and that incipience can give way to utter chaos without warning.

    'Incendies' Burns With Mystery, Truth Joe Morgenstern 2011

  • In contrast to part 1, which was a ponderous exercise in stage-setting and dramatic incipience, this film, directed by David Yates and adapted by Steve Kloves, is a climax worthy of the term.

    Harry Potter and the Fantastic Finale Joe Morgenstern 2011

  • It is almost the contrary: signification has its incipience in transcendence; transcendence is the intersubjective quality of sensibility.

    Emmanuel Levinas Bergo, Bettina 2007

  • The situation's bad, hence the decision to increase the presence of U.S. and international forces in Baghdad, though not clear that alone will be enough to quell this incipience of a war.

    CNN Transcript Jul 26, 2006 2006

  • He made Kaethe Gregorovius feel charming, meanwhile becoming increasingly restless at the all-pervading cauliflower — simultaneously hating himself too for this incipience of he knew not what superficiality.

    Tender is the Night 2003

  • The sky had lightened a little, but the air was heavy with the incipience of a storm.

    Black Blade Lustbader, Eric Van 1992

  • Through the windows, he had seen sunlight streaking the Georgica Pond - the name a deliberate understatement typical of the local gentry, it being more the size of a lake - like pigment upon a painter's brush: there was a sense about the light of incipience, of colour that was not yet vivid, of an idea not yet formed.

    Black Blade Lustbader, Eric Van 1992

  • The sky could no longer be seen and the air had grown heavy and dank as if with the incipience of a storm.

    The Miko Lustbader, Eric 1984

  • Stile felt his heartbeat and respiratory rate increase with the incipience of this effort.

    Blue Adept Anthony, Piers 1981

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.