Inchoate
/ɪnˈkəʊət/adjective
Just begun and not fully formed yet or developed.
They had an inchoate idea for a new business.
Often appears as...
- inchoate ideas
- inchoate plans
Usage tips
Formal
adjective
Not organized or ordered.
She could only make out fuzzy, inchoate shapes in the distance.
Often appears as...
- inchoate landscape
- inchoate thoughts
Usage tips
Formal
adjective
Lacking clear structure or focus.
His inchoate attempts at explanation only further confused the situation.
Often appears as...
- inchoate explanations
- inchoate attempt
Usage tips
Formal
adjective
Just begun and not fully formed yet or developed.
They had an inchoate idea for a new business.
Often appears as...
- inchoate ideas
- inchoate plans
Usage tips
Formal
adjective
Not organized or ordered.
She could only make out fuzzy, inchoate shapes in the distance.
Often appears as...
- inchoate landscape
- inchoate thoughts
Usage tips
Formal
adjective
Lacking clear structure or focus.
His inchoate attempts at explanation only further confused the situation.
Often appears as...
- inchoate explanations
- inchoate attempt
Usage tips
Formal
Definition 1 of 3
Pro Tip 1/3Early Phase
Use 'inchoate' to describe something at the very start.
The inchoate stages of a project are often the most challenging.
Pro Tip 2/3Not Mature
'Inchoate' suggests something has a lot more to develop.
The writer's inchoate manuscript lacked detail and depth.
Pro Tip 3/3Potential to Evolve
Inchoate implies room for growth and filling out.
The inchoate business idea showed promise but needed work.
Compare with
earlyelementaryembryonicformativeincipientnascentrudimentaryundeveloped
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Video examples
Hire the hackers! -...
against middle-eastern dictatorships against global media corporations or against intelligence agencies or whoever it is and their politics are not entirely unattractive okay they're a little inchoate and there's a there's a
Video examples
Kitra Cahana: My father,...
inchoate, sub-planetary, protozoan. Universes are opened and closed continually. There are many when low, who stop growing. Last week, I was brought so low,
Video examples
Hire the hackers! -...
against middle-eastern dictatorships against global media corporations or against intelligence agencies or whoever it is and their politics are not entirely unattractive okay they're a little inchoate and there's a there's a
Video examples
Kitra Cahana: My father,...
inchoate, sub-planetary, protozoan. Universes are opened and closed continually. There are many when low, who stop growing. Last week, I was brought so low,
Example 1 of 2
Quote examples
David Chase
American Writer
You see Michelangelo and Picasso and you read literature. I had some innate inchoate yearning for that, but I never really saw where I would fit in. That's called art. And then something happened to pop music, which is that it became art under the hand of the Beatles, the Stones, and Bob Dylan and some other people.
Quote examples
Elliott Abrams
American Lawyer
It seems clear to me that the Obama Administration has no human rights policy. That is, while in some inchoate sense they would like respect for human rights to grow around the world, as all Americans would, they have no actual policy to achieve that goal - and they subordinate it to all their other policy goals.
Quote examples
Annie Besant
English Philosopher
The mental body, like the astral, varies much in different people; it is composed of coarser or of finer matter, according to the needs of the more or less unfolded consciousness connected with it. In the educated it is active and well-defined; in the undeveloped it is cloudy and inchoate.
Quote examples
Charles McCarry
American Writer
I write in a very peculiar way. I think about a book for 25 or 30 years in a kind of inchoate way, and at one point or another, I realize the book is ready to be written. I usually have a character, a first line, and general idea of what the book is going to be about.
Quote examples
Will Self
English Author
There is something mysteriously powerful that can happen when young, inchoate minds come into contact with older and more worldly ones in a spirit of intellectual and creative endeavour - if I believed in progress, I suppose that's what I'd call it.
Quote examples
A. S. Byatt
English Novelist
In my mind's eye, Shakespeare is a huge, hot sea-beast, with fire in his veins and ice on his claws and inscrutable eyes, who looks like an inchoate hump under the encrustations of live barnacle-commentaries, limpets and trailing weeds.
Quote examples
Hampton Sides
American Historian
The Tea Party has very close affinities with independent third-party movements like the George Wallace movement. The Tea Party is still inchoate, still trying to figure out what it's going to become.
Quote examples
Graydon Carter
American Journalist
What do you call an electorate that seems prone to acting out irrationally, is full of inchoate rage, and is constantly throwing fits and tantrums? You call it teenaged.
Quote examples
Jeffrey Kluger
American Writer
Your parents leave you too soon and your kids and spouse come along late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most inchoate form.
Quote examples
Rollo May
American Psychologist
The emergence of the Atomic Age brought the previously inchoate and 'free-floating' anxiety of many people into sharp focus.
Quote examples
David Chase
American Writer
You see Michelangelo and Picasso and you read literature. I had some innate inchoate yearning for that, but I never really saw where I would fit in. That's called art. And then something happened to pop music, which is that it became art under the hand of the Beatles, the Stones, and Bob Dylan and some other people.
Quote examples
Elliott Abrams
American Lawyer
It seems clear to me that the Obama Administration has no human rights policy. That is, while in some inchoate sense they would like respect for human rights to grow around the world, as all Americans would, they have no actual policy to achieve that goal - and they subordinate it to all their other policy goals.
Quote examples
Annie Besant
English Philosopher
The mental body, like the astral, varies much in different people; it is composed of coarser or of finer matter, according to the needs of the more or less unfolded consciousness connected with it. In the educated it is active and well-defined; in the undeveloped it is cloudy and inchoate.
Quote examples
Charles McCarry
American Writer
I write in a very peculiar way. I think about a book for 25 or 30 years in a kind of inchoate way, and at one point or another, I realize the book is ready to be written. I usually have a character, a first line, and general idea of what the book is going to be about.
Quote examples
Will Self
English Author
There is something mysteriously powerful that can happen when young, inchoate minds come into contact with older and more worldly ones in a spirit of intellectual and creative endeavour - if I believed in progress, I suppose that's what I'd call it.
Quote examples
A. S. Byatt
English Novelist
In my mind's eye, Shakespeare is a huge, hot sea-beast, with fire in his veins and ice on his claws and inscrutable eyes, who looks like an inchoate hump under the encrustations of live barnacle-commentaries, limpets and trailing weeds.
Quote examples
Hampton Sides
American Historian
The Tea Party has very close affinities with independent third-party movements like the George Wallace movement. The Tea Party is still inchoate, still trying to figure out what it's going to become.
Quote examples
Graydon Carter
American Journalist
What do you call an electorate that seems prone to acting out irrationally, is full of inchoate rage, and is constantly throwing fits and tantrums? You call it teenaged.
Quote examples
Jeffrey Kluger
American Writer
Your parents leave you too soon and your kids and spouse come along late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most inchoate form.
Quote examples
Rollo May
American Psychologist
The emergence of the Atomic Age brought the previously inchoate and 'free-floating' anxiety of many people into sharp focus.
Example 1 of 10
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