I take Roddles's point, but I imagine quite a few Chi players would neither know nor understand
nucleate. The word seldom appears in non-technical publications, and even when it does, it's generally in a scientific context. An example was in a
Guardian article in 2013:
According to the study, hydrated iron-oxide (ferrihydrite) crystals first nucleate on a fiber-like chitinous (complex sugar) organic template.
The least technical example I could find of the use of this word was in the heading of a 2011
New York Times editorial marking the centenary of Rutherford's "solar system" model of the atom: "A Nucleated Century".
Nucleate can be both an adjective (= "having a nucleus") and a verb (= "form a nucleus"). Currently
nucleated is also common, but
nucleating is rare. I think on balance that
nucleate and
nucleated should become rare.