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The Origin of Nascent
Nascent descends from the Latin verb nasci, meaning “to be born,” as does many an English word, from nation and nature to innate and renaissance. But rather than describing the birth of literal babies—as in pups, kits, hoglets, et al.—nascent is applied to things (such as careers or technologies) that have recently formed or come into existence, as when scholar Danille K. Taylor-Guthrie wrote of Toni Morrison being “an integral part of a nascent group of black women writers who would alter the course of African American, American, and world literature.”
Examples of nascent in a Sentence
Mike Sager, Rolling Stone, 27 June 1996
It was almost 80 years ago that the Wright brothers from Ohio ventured to Kitty Hawk for the uplift its steady winds offered their nascent passion, airplanes.
—Robert R. Yandle, Popular Photography, March 1993
A few centuries late, when the nascent science of geology was gathering evidence for the earth's enormous antiquity, some advocates of biblical literalism revived this old argument for our entire planet.
—Stephen Jay Gould, Granta 16, Summer 1985
The actress is now focusing on her nascent singing career.
one of the leading figures in the nascent civil-rights movement
Rohan Goswami, semafor.com, 10 Nov. 2025
Formerly known as Fiume, which is still its Italian name, the city was the site of an experiment at a time of nascent fascism that many non-locals may not be aware of.
—Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 9 Nov. 2025
At a time when virtually every door to opportunity was shut to African Americans, Robeson (1898-1976) achieved enormous feats – becoming a star football player at Rutgers and later earning his law degree from Columbia University while playing in the nascent NFL.
—Matthew Carey, Deadline, 6 Nov. 2025
The companies aren’t at all ready to discuss marketing so nascent a product, but Hodak does venture a number—on the order of $100,000 to $200,000 for a Prima implant.
—Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 6 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for nascent
Cite this Entry
“Nascent.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nascent. Accessed 15 Nov. 2025.
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