inception
(ɪnˈsɛpʃən)
[ad. L. inceptiōn-em, n. of action from incipĕre to begin. Cf. OF. inception, -cion (15–16th c.).]
1. The action of entering upon some undertaking, process, or stage of existence; origination, beginning, commencement.
| a 1483 Liber Niger in Househ. Ord. (1792) 18 From his first inception, tyll the day of his dethe, his house stode aftyr one vnyformitie. 1626 Bacon Sylva §316 The Inception of Putrefaction hath in it a Maturation. 1677 Hale Prim. Orig. Man i. ii. 69 The very repugnancy in Nature of successive Beings to be without an inception, or eternal. 1827 Jarman Powell's Devises II. 299 Cases in which..the devise, according to the state of events at the time of its inception, never could have had an object. 1866 Grove Contrib. Sc. in Corr. Phys. Forces (1874) 211 Minute organisms which appear so to speak, full-blown at their inception. 1878 Lecky Eng. in 18th C. I. ii. 213 Between the inception and the execution of the project Louis XIV died. |
2. In University use: The action of incepting; see quots. 1888, 1895, and cf. commencement 2.
| c 1680 Wood Annals (ed. Gutch, 1792) I. 60 After he had feasted the Scholars at his Inception, they like clownes left him. Ibid. 66 There was no scholar, if of any account, but did show himself bountiful at his Inception. 1841 Peacock Stat. Cambridge 11 There yet remained to be performed [before creation] the exercises of inception or commencement. 1888 Mullinger in Encycl. Brit. XXIII. 835/1 By inception was implied the master's formal entrance upon, and commencement of, the functions of a duly licensed teacher, and his recognition as such by his brothers in the profession. 1895 Rashdall Univ. Europe in Mid. Ages I. iv. 232 In our English Universities, conservative as they are in many things, every trace of the ceremony of Inception has at length unhappily disappeared; only the preliminary ceremonial of the License survives. Ibid. v. 452 An interval of half a year commonly elapsed between License and Inception... He was then free to give his formal inaugural lecture or rather disputation in the presence of the Faculty, to receive the Magisterial biretta and the book,..to receive the kiss of fellowship, and to take his seat upon the magisterial Cathedra. |
3. The action of taking in, as an organism.
| a 1849 E. A. Poe (O.), The result is the immersion of the mouth and nostrils, and the inception, during efforts to breathe while beneath the surface, of water into the lungs. |