Inchoate
Etymology
From Latin inchoare (also spelled incohare), "to begin." The traditional explanation traces it to cohum, the strap or part of a yoke to which the plow beam was fastened, so that "to begin" originally meant "to hitch up the oxen" before plowing — though this origin is uncertain and debated. Either way, the word came to describe not just a start but a start that remains rough and incomplete.
adjective · /in-KOH-it/
Just begun and not yet fully formed, so still vague, partial, or disordered.
What it names
The word for a thing that exists but hasn’t taken clear shape — inchoate feelings, an inchoate plan — where the emphasis is on its unfinished, formless quality.
Example
His theory was still inchoate, a scatter of intuitions he could not yet assemble into an argument.
Related idea
Incipient simply means newly begun; inchoate adds that the thing remains shapeless and disordered, not merely early.