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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While still nascent, the focus is on developing safe, reliable, and affordable robots for industrial use, with domestic roles emerging later.—Bernard Marr, Forbes.com, 19 June 2026 Over time, the nascent outlet pivoted away from lifestyle content and toward service journalism, while maintaining an influencer-style approach.—Justin Birnbaum, Sportico.com, 18 June 2026 In the early twentieth century, when vast deposits of oil were found in the country’s northwest, Dutch, British, and American companies seized on the opportunity to develop and profit from the country’s nascent industry.—Stephania Taladrid, New Yorker, 17 June 2026 His reflexive suspicion of causes left him more dismayed than energized by the nascent conflict.—John Swansburg, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026 See All Example Sentences for nascent
Word History
Etymology
Latin nascent-, nascens, present participle of nasci to be born — more at nation