'Formal' definitions:
Definition of 'formal'
From: WordNet
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" [ant: informal]
adjective
Characteristic of or befitting a person in authority; "formal duties"; "an official banquet"
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" [ant: informal]
adjective
Represented in simplified or symbolic form [syn: conventional, formal, schematic]
adjective
Logically deductive; "formal proof"
adjective
Refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a royal court; "a courtly gentleman" [syn: courtly, formal, stately]
noun
A lavish dance requiring formal attire [syn: ball, formal]
noun
Definition of 'Formal'
From: GCIDE
- Formal \For"mal\ (f[^o]r"mal), n. [L. formic + alcohol.] (Chem.) See Methylal.
Definition of 'Formal'
From: GCIDE
- Formal \Form"al\ (f[^o]rm"al), a. [L. formalis: cf. F. formel.]
- 1. Belonging to the form, shape, frame, external appearance, or organization of a thing. [1913 Webster]
- 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. [1913 Webster]
- 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. --Holder. [1913 Webster]
- 3. Done in due form, or with solemnity; according to regular method; not incidental, sudden or irregular; express; as, he gave his formal consent. [1913 Webster]
- His obscure funeral . . . No noble rite nor formal ostentation. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
- 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. [1913 Webster]
- A cold-looking, formal garden, cut into angles and rhomboids. --W. Irwing. [1913 Webster]
- She took off the formal cap that confined her hair. --Hawthorne. [1913 Webster]
- 5. Having the form or appearance without the substance or essence; external; as, formal duty; formal worship; formal courtesy, etc. [1913 Webster]
- 6. Dependent in form; conventional. [1913 Webster]
- Still in constraint your suffering sex remains, Or bound in formal or in real chains. --Pope. [1913 Webster]
- 7. Sound; normal. [Obs.] [1913 Webster]
- To make of him a formal man again. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
- Formal cause. See under Cause.
- Syn: Precise; punctilious; stiff; starched; affected; ritual; ceremonial; external; outward.
- Usage: 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. [1913 Webster]
Definition of 'formal'
From: GCIDE
- Methylal \Meth"yl*al\, n. [Methylene + alcohol.] (Chem.) A light, volatile liquid, H2C(OCH3)2, regarded as a complex ether, and having a pleasant ethereal odor. It is obtained by the partial oxidation of methyl alcohol. Called also formal. [1913 Webster]
Synonyms of 'formal'
From: Moby Thesaurus
- accepted,
- acknowledged,
- adjectival,
- admitted,
- adverbial,
- anatomic,
- approved,
- architectonic,
- architectural,
- arranged,
- attributive,
- authorized,
- awkward,
- baccalaureate service,
- baptismal,
- being done,
- bloated,
- bombastic,
- businesslike,
- byname,
- celebration,
- ceremonial,
- ceremonious,
- ceremony,
- chivalric,
- chivalrous,
- cognominal,
- comme il faut,
- commencement,
- conditional,
- confining,
- conformable,
- conjunctive,
- constructional,
- conventional,
- conventionalized,
- convocation,
- copulative,
- correct,
- courtly,
- cramped,
- cumbrous,
- customary,
- de rigueur,
- decent,
- decorous,
- definite,
- demure,
- dignified,
- diminutive,
- distant,
- dress uniform,
- earnest,
- edificial,
- elephantine,
- empty formality,
- epithetic,
- established,
- eucharistic,
- evening dress,
- exact,
- exacting,
- exercise,
- exercises,
- explicit,
- express,
- extrinsic,
- fixed,
- flatulent,
- forced,
- formal dress,
- formalist,
- formalistic,
- formality,
- formalized,
- formational,
- formative,
- formulaic,
- formular,
- formulary,
- frowning,
- full dress,
- function,
- functional,
- gallant,
- gassy,
- glossematic,
- graduation,
- graduation exercises,
- grammatic,
- grandiloquent,
- grave,
- grim,
- grim-faced,
- grim-visaged,
- guinde,
- habitual,
- halting,
- harmonious,
- heavy,
- High-Church,
- honorific,
- hypocoristic,
- impersonal,
- in hand,
- in name only,
- inaugural,
- inauguration,
- inflated,
- inflexible,
- initiation,
- inkhorn,
- intransitive,
- knightly,
- labored,
- Latinate,
- lawful,
- leaden,
- legal,
- legalistic,
- limited,
- linking,
- liturgic,
- liturgistic,
- liturgy,
- long-faced,
- lumbering,
- meet,
- methodical,
- modal,
- morphological,
- morphotic,
- mummery,
- nominal,
- nominative,
- normal,
- observance,
- office,
- official,
- old-fashioned,
- old-world,
- ordered,
- orderly,
- organic,
- organismal,
- orthodox,
- ostensible,
- outward,
- participial,
- paschal,
- pedantic,
- performance,
- plastic,
- pompous,
- ponderous,
- pontifical,
- postpositional,
- precise,
- prepositional,
- prescribed,
- pretended,
- prim,
- pro forma,
- professed,
- pronominal,
- proper,
- punctilious,
- purported,
- quasi,
- received,
- recognized,
- regalia,
- regular,
- religious ceremony,
- reserved,
- right,
- rigid,
- rite,
- rite de passage,
- rite of passage,
- ritual,
- ritualistic,
- routine,
- sacramental,
- sacramentarian,
- sedate,
- seemly,
- self-called,
- self-christened,
- self-important,
- self-styled,
- serious,
- service,
- sesquipedalian,
- set,
- so-called,
- sober,
- sober-minded,
- sobersided,
- soi-disant,
- solemn,
- solemnity,
- solemnization,
- somber,
- square,
- staid,
- standard,
- starched,
- stately,
- steady,
- stiff,
- stilted,
- stone-faced,
- straight,
- straight-faced,
- strait-laced,
- straitened,
- strict,
- structural,
- stuffy,
- stylized,
- substantive,
- substructural,
- superficial,
- superstructural,
- supposed,
- surface,
- swollen,
- symmetrical,
- syntactic,
- systematic,
- tagmemic,
- tails,
- tectonic,
- textural,
- thoughtful,
- titular,
- traditional,
- transitive,
- tumid,
- turgid,
- tuxedo,
- unbending,
- unchanging,
- uniform,
- unsmiling,
- unwieldy,
- usual,
- verbal,
- weighty,
- well-ordered,
- well-regulated,
- would-be