inchoate

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Recently started but not fully formed yet; just begun; only elementary or immature.

   neither a substance perfect, nor a substance inchoate

2. 2
   adj

   Chaotic, disordered, confused; also, incoherent, rambling.

   The Met's chairman, Sir Edward Watkin, was also chairman of that company [the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway], which duplicated other railways' routes in an inchoate way between Manchester and Grimsby, and generally stumbled about the north.

3. 3
   adj

   Of a crime, imposing criminal liability for an incompleted act.

   Congress considers the inchoate offenses of attempt and conspiracy, even conspiracy without an overt act, to be just as serious as the federal substantive drug offenses which they contemplate.

4. 4
   adj

   only partly in existence

5. 5
   noun

   A beginning, an immature start.

6. 6
   verb

   To begin or start (something).

7. 7
   verb

   To cause or bring about. In the field of criminology, to encourage, assist, conspire, aid and abet, incite, etc.

8. 8
   verb

   To make a start.

Etymology

The adjective is first attested in 1534, the verb circa 1631; borrowed from Latin incohātus (“begun, unfinished”), perfect passive participle of incohō (“to begin”), see -ate (etymology 1, 2 and 3). Cognate with Spanish incoar (“to initiate, commence, begin”).