GIVE ANSWERS - English

”Inception” is a somewhat uncommon synonym of ”start, creation, beginning”.

Its corresponding verb is ”to incept” (ie, to begin) & its adjective ”inceptual” or ”incipient”.

It comes from the Latin ”inceptiō”, of same meaning, is thus cognate with the English word ”incipient”, among others, & you don’t need to know any of this in order to talk good English, but now you do!

”inception” would be used very formally and often in relation to bureaucratic / legal language to describe the beginning of something not directly concrete/tangible. It’s frequently used in relation to beginning to plan something which does lead to something real and physical.

”initiation” is probably a better synonym for ”inception”. ”beginning”, ”commencement” and ”start” are too wide in meaning,

You would not describe ”the inception of the construction of a new railway line” when talking about the first machines to start digging - the actual building activity is something physical and concrete. ”the inception of the construction of a new railway line” might be about when the first ideas for the construction of a new railway line had begun.

You could also talk about ”the inception of planning for construction of a new railway line” to describe the beginning of the planning phase of this construction project - the plans are not a direct construction of that railway line.

The movie ”Inception” was all about dreams and other intangible elements and their beginnings and which ultimately lead to concrete real world effects - that’s why the title works.

As a verb, ”to incept”, it’s extremely rare. ”Incipient” is more commonly used as an adjective. I’ve seen ”inception being more commonly used in American English than British English.