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SAT Vocabulary – Inchoate

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lvl1This Week’s Word: Inchoate [In-KOH-it] adjective

Inchoate is a word used to describe something that’s just begun, and in an incomplete way.

Synonyms: Incipient; Embryonic

Etymology: It might help to talk about the root of the word first, starting with “choate”. This root is also a word all on its own, and is primarily used in the world of law to describe something that is “completed or perfected in and of itself”; at least, it was thought of as a word. In 2009, a lawyer representing a cigarette company charged with selling untaxed cigarettes before the Supreme Court used “choate” in the language that made up his defense. He immediately was corrected by one of the justices, who claimed “There is no such adjective.” Now, although the Webster’s New World Law Dictionary states there is such an adjective usable in the context the attorney used, the judge makes a very good case for the usage being incorrect in a court of law (or anywhere for that matter). He argues that the prefix in- of “inchoate”, does not indicate a negative context, seeing as how the original Latin term it derives from, “incohare,” specifically meaning “to begin”. So, nowhere in that definition do you see the description “Not (complete)” or “Not (finished)”, and therefore inchoate cannot be used in a directly opposing context to “choate”. It seems as though if you wanted to use inchoate appropriately, you’d need to describe something rudimentary or embryonic, rather than simply incomplete or inadequate.

Sample 1: The Lawyer’s inchoate defense proved a novice mistake, as the Supreme Court Justice proceeded to berate his ineptitude by patronizing his career choice.

Sample 2: The election of Adolf Hitler was inchoate; a kindle of the fire that was to become World War II.


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