formal

[For·mal]

Being formal is all about being taken seriously. If you're invited to the White House, you'll want to make a good impression, so it's a good idea to adopt a generally formal demeanor. No jeans or trash talking allowed.

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

Adjective S.
refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a royal court; "a courtly gentleman"

Adjective
being in accord with established forms and conventions and requirements (as e.g. of formal dress); "pay one''s formal respects"; "formal dress"; "a formal ball"; "the requirement was only formal and often ignored"; "a formal education"

Adjective
(of spoken and written language) adhering to traditional standards of correctness and without casual, contracted, and colloquial forms; "the paper was written in formal English"

Adjective S.
logically deductive; "formal proof"

Adjective S.
characteristic of or befitting a person in authority; "formal duties"; "an official banquet"

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Adjective S.
represented in simplified or symbolic form

n.
See Methylal.

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

a.
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.

a.
Done in due form, or with solemnity; according to regular method; not incidental, sudden or irregular; express; as, he gave his formal consent.

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

a.
Dependent in form; conventional.

a.
Sound; normal.

Formal

For"mal , a. [L. formalis: cf. F. formel.] 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 oe 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 is 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. Syn. -- 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.

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

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Usage Examples

I am going to get political on you. Because I am the most shallow person in the world, my mission is to see men's formal wear change a little bit. It is too rigid! Everybody looks like a penguin!

But picketing - picketing for or against something, and handing out literature - these are conspicuously formal actions. They have to be understood as indirect communication.

At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom.

Although my art work was heavily informed by my design work on a formal and visual level, as regards meaning and content the two practices parted ways.

Formal education will make you a living self-education will make you a fortune.

I am a passionate traveler, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education.

I never got a formal education. So my intellect is my common sense. I don't have anything else going for me. And my common sense opens the door to instinct.

I graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Communications and left formal education behind.

Misspelled Form

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Other Usage Examples

I rise today to offer a formal and heartfelt apology to all the victims of lynching in our history, and for the failure of the United States Senate to take action when action was most needed.

I don't like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It's just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs.

I hate formal stuff. I love looking like a doll and all that stuff and playing dress up, but when I'm home, sweat pants, t-shirt. When I'm in the studio, sweat pants, t-shirt.

I'm named after a horse. My mom's best friend had a horse named Brooke, so my dad suggested 'Brooklyn' as a more formal version, and it just stuck - and now I live in Brooklyn part-time, so go figure.

Color is a plastic means of creating intervals... color harmonics produced by special relationships, or tensions. We differentiate now between formal tensions and color tensions, just as we differentiate in music between counterpoint and harmony.

I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits, limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes.

Every company has two organizational structures: The formal one is written on the charts the other is the everyday relationship of the men and women in the organization.

I have enormous respect for Tom Daschle. The NRA has not yet taken a formal position on which I'm aware of on this matter, and I think Tom may be just getting a little ahead of things.