Inception Meaning
/ɪnˈsɛpʃən/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThe creation or beginning of something; the establishment.
nounA layering, nesting, or recursion of something within itself.
Sentence Examples
Tatoeba's popularity has been growing exponentially since the day of its inception.
Matrix, Inception and Interstellar are my favorite movies.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The company's ____ occurred in a small garage with just two founders.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The project has undergone many changes since its ____ more than five long years ago.
Word Origin & History
Late Middle English, borrowed from Latin inceptiō, from inceptus, perfect passive participle of incipiō (“to begin”). The layering sense derives from the 2010 science fiction film Inception, in which a team of people infiltrate someone’s subconscious mind, proceeding through several layers of dreams with the goal of causing someone to incept an idea.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"To fill up Liberia with an ignorant, inexperienced, half-barbarized race, just escaped from the chains of slavery, would be only to prolong, for ages, the period of struggle and conflict which attends the inception of new enterprises."
— 1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter XLV, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC:
"For a few moments they spoke of the opera, of the topics that were then occupying the attention of Paris, of the pleasure of renewing their brief acquaintance which had had its inception under such odd circumstances, and this brought them to the subject that was uppermost in the minds of both."
— 1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 4, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg, published March 1915, →OCLC:
"My mother, at my inception, did not create that passionate lack of fear that is mine."
— 1915, Jack London, chapter 18, in The Star Rover:
"Utilizing a case register in Salford, England, Stein and Susser have studied inceptions of psychiatric illness […] Inceptions, defined as first episode of psychiatric care in a person's life, […]"
— 1979 May, The Interagency Committee on New Therapies for Pain and Discomfort Report to the White House, Department of Health […] , page 128:
"Concurrent to this order, Good forged a link with Irish Railways, which resulted in the latter building five shunters with Brush equipment, marking the inception of dieselisation in the country."
— 2021 June 30, David Clough, “Brush: a UK rail icon”, in RAIL, number 934, page 55:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The company's ____ occurred in a small garage with just two founders.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The project has undergone many changes since its ____ more than five long years ago.