1 Beginning to happen or develop: he could feel incipient anger building up an incipient black eye. More example sentences. 1  At least at the beginning of the incipient movement, conservatives and libertarians could find a common enemy in the growth of the New Deal welfare state. His vision is informed by the hope and joy, as well as the melancholia and uncertainty, of that period of incipience. 2  But also, from its incipience around 1968, liberation theology has been surrounded by controversy because of its often-unabashed association with Marxist analysis.