FORMAL • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Formal

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/fˈɔrməl/ Listen

adjective

Formal adj.

1.

Belonging to the form, shape, frame, external appearance, or organization of a thing.

2.

Belonging to the constitution of a thing, as distinguished from the matter composing it; having the power of making a thing what it is; constituent; essential; pertaining to or depending on the forms, so called, of the human intellect. "Of (the sounds represented by) letters, the material part is breath and voice; the formal is constituted by the motion and figure of the organs of speech."

3.

Done in due form, or with solemnity; according to regular method; not incidental, sudden or irregular; express; as, he gave his formal consent. "His obscure funeral... No noble rite nor formal ostentation."

4.

Devoted to, or done in accordance with, forms or rules; punctilious; regular; orderly; methodical; of a prescribed form; exact; prim; stiff; ceremonious; as, a man formal in his dress, his gait, his conversation. "A cold-looking, formal garden, cut into angles and rhomboids." "She took off the formal cap that confined her hair."

5.

Having the form or appearance without the substance or essence; external; as, formal duty; formal worship; formal courtesy, etc.

6.

Dependent in form; conventional. "Still in constraint your suffering sex remains, Or bound in formal or in real chains."

7.

Sound; normal. (Obs.) "To make of him a formal man again."

Formal cause. See under Cause.

Synonyms: Precise; punctilious; stiff; starched; affected; ritual; ceremonial; external; outward. Formal, Ceremonious. When applied to things, these words usually denote a mere accordance with the rules of form or ceremony; as, to make a formal call; to take a ceremonious leave. When applied to a person or his manners, they are used in a bad sense; a person being called formal who shapes himself too much by some pattern or set form, and ceremonious when he lays too much stress on the conventional laws of social intercourse. Formal manners render a man stiff or ridiculous; a ceremonious carriage puts a stop to the ease and freedom of social intercourse.

noun

Formal n. (Chem.) See Methylal.

See images of 'Formal'

Etymology of 'Formal'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Formal" Quotes from Famous Books

... apostle—passing as it were by its front door—should have given the go-bye to a region so important as the Munster Decies. Perhaps he sent preachers into it; perhaps there was no special necessity for a formal mission, as the faith had already found entrance. It is a little noteworthy too that we do not find St. Patrick's name surviving in any ecclesiastical connection with the Decies, if we except Patrick's Well, near Clonmel, and this Well is within a mile or so of the territorial frontier. ...

— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous

... know who it was and what was the occasion of it (it being then about eleven o'clock). Mrs. Hayes answered that it was her husband, who was going a journey into the country, and pretended to take a formal leave of him, expressing her sorrow that he was obliged to go out of town at that time of night, and her fear least any accident should attend him in ...

— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... buy them there at home just the same, sir, if you like,' he answered, for the first time using the formal 'sir' in addressing me. ...

— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev

... and he were growing almost formal towards each other. She had lost her taste for being read to in the evenings and had developed a habit of pleading a headache and going early to bed. Sometimes, catching her eye when she was not expecting it, he surprised ...

— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... does not make men more humane than they would be without it, it makes them fatally less so; and it is to be feared that the spirit of the pilgrim fathers, which had oscillated to the other extreme, and had again crystallized into a formal antinomian fanaticism, reproduced the same fatal results as those in which the Spaniards had set them their unworthy precedent. But the Elizabethan navigators, full without exception of large kindness, wisdom, gentleness, ...

— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

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