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.”
In the mid-'60s, Toronto was home to Yorkville, a gathering spot for draft resisters, a petri dish for a nascent coffeehouse and rock scene similar to the one developing in New York's Greenwich Village.—Mike Sager, Rolling Stone, 27 June 1996It 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 1993A 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
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Tech companies like OpenAI have played a central role in shaping the White House’s positions on the nascent technology.—Ashley Capoot,kate Rooney, CNBC, 5 June 2026 Built in the late 1940s and early ’50s during the nascent days of the aerospace boom in the San Fernando Valley, the industrial warehouse had more recently been home to a company that manufactured neon signs.—Mayer Rus, Architectural Digest, 4 June 2026 Some experts fear tech companies and venture capitalists are pouring too much money into a still-nascent and unproven technology.—ABC News, 3 June 2026 Still, the case is often credited as reining in Microsoft and allowing then-nascent firms like Google to flourish.—Lauren Feiner, The Verge, 1 June 2026 See All Example Sentences for nascent
Word History
Etymology
Latin nascent-, nascens, present participle of nasci to be born — more at nation