incipient

1. not comparableIn an initial stage; beginning, starting, coming into existence.

   After 500 years, incipient towns appeared.

   5 more examples

   Employees shall be familiarized with the use of a fire extinguisher in incipient stage fire fighting.

   How many more places might have been distributed by her incipient majesty it is impossible to say, for the thread of her meditation was broken by the sudden termination of the path.

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 141

   It need not be supposed that all varieties or incipient species necessarily attain the rank of species.

   1859, Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

   It may even be that because of incipient satiation, the shares of the marginal dollar display consumption propensities that are the reverse of the ones exhibited by the average dollar.

   1995, Andreu Mas-Colell, Michael D. Whinston, and Jerry R. Green, Microeconomic Theory, Oxford University Press, page 115

   Aislyn presses back against her house’s front door, panting a little with an incipient panic attack.

   2020, N. K. Jemisin, The City We Became, Orbit, page 405

   Synonyms: beginning, commencing, emerging, starting, inchoate, nascent, embryonic

plural incipients

1. obsoleteA beginner.

   Synonyms: beginner, inceptor

2. grammarA verb tense of the Hebrew language.