inchoate

adj

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

   “neither a substance perfect, nor a substance inchoate”

   “It do's indeed perfect and crown thoſe graces which were here inchoate and begun, but no mans converſion ever ſucceeded his being there ...”

   “This appointment is evidenced by an open, unequivocal act, and, being the last act required from the person making it, necessarily excludes the idea of its being, so far as it respects the appointment, an inchoate and incomplete transaction.”

   “It being determined that a constitution should be made for the inchoate government, men were selected by its sponsors, from those at the Illinois Camp Ground, including as many western Cherokees as could be induced to sign it.”

   “...unfortunately, we have to face inchoate schemes which will demand the utmost jealousy and vigilance of Parliament.”

2. 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. 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.”

noun

1. (rare)A beginning, an immature start.

verb

1. (transitive)To begin or start (something).
2. (transitive)To cause or bring about. In the field of criminology, to encourage, assist, conspire, aid and abet, incite, etc.
3. (intransitive)To make a start.