Dictionary Definition
formal adj
1 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]
2 characteristic of or befitting a person in
authority; "formal duties"; "an official banquet"
3 (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]
4 represented in simplified or symbolic form
[syn: conventional,
schematic]
5 logically deductive; "formal proof"
6 refined or imposing in manner or appearance;
befitting a royal court; "a courtly gentleman" [syn: courtly, elegant, stately]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
-
- Rhymes: -ɔː(r)məl
Adjective
- being in accord with established forms
- official
- relating to the form or structure of something
- ceremonial
Antonyms
Related terms
Translations
being in accord with established forms
- Czech: formální
- Finnish: kaavamainen, formaali
- German: formal
official
- Finnish: virallinen, formaali
- German: förmlich, formell, offiziell
relating to the form or structure of something
- Finnish: muodollinen, formaali
- German: Form-
- Kurdish:
ceremonial
- Finnish: juhlallinen, formaali
- German: formell, förmlich
- ttbc Catalan: formal
Noun
Translations
formalin
See: formalin
Crimean Tatar
Adjective
formalReferences
Useinov-Mireev 2002}}German
Adjective
Extensive Definition
The term formal has a number of uses,
including:
General
- relating to formality
- opposite of informal
Social
- Formal
occasion
- Formal attire worn on such occasions
- Formals are particular meals at some British universities
- In Australian or British English, a "formal" is the equivalent of the American prom dance.
- In American English, a "formal" is organized by a college or university organization, typically but not always a fraternity or sorority.
- Informal
occasion (included as Informal redirect
here); see Dress
code (Western) for the distinctions between Formal,
Semi-formal, and Informal
- Informal attire (not to be confused with Casual -- see Dress code (Western))
Philosophical
- relating to form, i.e.
appearance rather than essence.
- relating to Formalism, i.e. emphasis on form over content or meaning.
- formal logic logical argument based only on the form and not on the meaning.
- Formal cause, Aristotle's intrinsic, determining cause.
Mathematics
- formal power series, a generalization of power series without requiring convergence, used in combinatorics;
- formal calculation, a calculation which is systematic, but without a rigorous justification;
- formal set theory as opposed to naive set theory;
- formal derivative, an operation on elements of a polynomial ring which mimics the form of the derivative from calculus.
Logic and Language
- formal
system, an abstract means of generating inferences in a formal
language;
- formal
language, comprising the symbolic "words" or "sentences" of a
formal system;
- formal grammar, a grammar describing a formal language;
- formal proof, a fully rigorous proof as is possible only in a formal system.
- formal
language, comprising the symbolic "words" or "sentences" of a
formal system;
Computer science
- formal
methods in computer science, including:
- formal specification describes what a system should do, not how it should do it
- formal verification proves correctness of a system
See also the Language section of Mathematics,
above
Linguistic
- Formal equivalence word-for-word translation (especially of the Bible)
See also the Language section of Mathematics,
above
Chemical
- A unit of concentration
- short or prefix form for formalin
- short or prefix form for formaldehyde
- synonym for dimethoxymethane
See also
formal in German: Formalität
formal in French: Formel
formal in Italian: Formalità
formal in Dutch: Formeel
formal in Simple English: Formal
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
High-Church, Latinate, 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, honorific, hypocoristic, impersonal, in hand, in name
only, inaugural,
inauguration,
inflated, inflexible, initiation, inkhorn, intransitive, knightly, labored, 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