From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishincipientin‧cip‧i‧ent /ɪnˈsɪpiənt/ adjective [only before noun] formal START TO HAPPEN, EXIST ETCstarting to happen or exist a sign of incipient madness
Examples from the Corpus
incipient• I am pretty sure that these noises do not proceed from incipient compression failures.• an incipient drinking problem• Yet despite these incipient industrial concentrations, the economy of Piedmont remained overwhelmingly agrarian and rural.• Some assiduously fill notebooks with writing: incipient novelists or thesis writers?• The wind came howling down the street full of rain and incipient snow.• The incipient spouses are of course excited by the adventure, the new life, heralded by marriage.Origin incipient (1600-1700) Latin present participle of incipere; → INCEPTION 