The 8088 (1979) was a low-cost (reduced bus width) follow-up to the 8086 (1978). You may be thinking of the 8080 (1974) or 8085 (1976).

No, I meant the 8086. The iAPX 432 project was started in 1975 but wasn't released until 1981. The 432 was late, very late, and so Intel needed a stopgap product. That was the 8086, started in 1975 and released in 1979.

I'm still not following. You seem to have said above that the 8086 was an iteration of the 8088, whereas Wikipedia claims that the 8088 is instead a variant of the 8086. It also says that the 8088 came out after the 8086. Can you restate and clarify your claim? A typo seems like the most likely explanation, but maybe I'm just misunderstanding.

I'm only talking about the purpose of the 8086 as a stopgap for the very late 432. I shouldn't have mentioned the 8088.