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Form   /fɔrm/   Listen
noun
Form  n.  
1.
The shape and structure of anything, as distinguished from the material of which it is composed; particular disposition or arrangement of matter, giving it individuality or distinctive character; configuration; figure; external appearance. "The form of his visage was changed." "And woven close close, both matter, form, and style."
2.
Constitution; mode of construction, organization, etc.; system; as, a republican form of government.
3.
Established method of expression or practice; fixed way of proceeding; conventional or stated scheme; formula; as, a form of prayer. "Those whom form of laws Condemned to die."
4.
Show without substance; empty, outside appearance; vain, trivial, or conventional ceremony; conventionality; formality; as, a matter of mere form. "Though well we may not pass upon his life Without the form of justice."
5.
Orderly arrangement; shapeliness; also, comeliness; elegance; beauty. "The earth was without form and void." "He hath no form nor comeliness."
6.
A shape; an image; a phantom.
7.
That by which shape is given or determined; mold; pattern; model.
8.
A long seat; a bench; hence, a rank of students in a school; a class; also, a class or rank in society. "Ladies of a high form."
9.
The seat or bed of a hare. "As in a form sitteth a weary hare."
10.
(Print.) The type or other matter from which an impression is to be taken, arranged and secured in a chase.
11.
(Fine Arts) The boundary line of a material object. In (painting), more generally, the human body.
12.
(Gram.) The particular shape or structure of a word or part of speech; as, participial forms; verbal forms.
13.
(Crystallog.) The combination of planes included under a general crystallographic symbol. It is not necessarily a closed solid.
14.
(Metaph.) That assemblage or disposition of qualities which makes a conception, or that internal constitution which makes an existing thing to be what it is; called essential or substantial form, and contradistinguished from matter; hence, active or formative nature; law of being or activity; subjectively viewed, an idea; objectively, a law.
15.
Mode of acting or manifestation to the senses, or the intellect; as, water assumes the form of ice or snow. In modern usage, the elements of a conception furnished by the mind's own activity, as contrasted with its object or condition, which is called the matter; subjectively, a mode of apprehension or belief conceived as dependent on the constitution of the mind; objectively, universal and necessary accompaniments or elements of every object known or thought of.
16.
(Biol.) The peculiar characteristics of an organism as a type of others; also, the structure of the parts of an animal or plant.
Good form or Bad form, the general appearance, condition or action, originally of horses, afterwards of persons; as, the members of a boat crew are said to be in good form when they pull together uniformly. The phrases are further used colloquially in description of conduct or manners in society; as, it is not good form to smoke in the presence of a lady.


verb
Form  v. t.  (past & past part. formed; pres. part. forming)  
1.
To give form or shape to; to frame; to construct; to make; to fashion. "God formed man of the dust of the ground." "The thought that labors in my forming brain."
2.
To give a particular shape to; to shape, mold, or fashion into a certain state or condition; to arrange; to adjust; also, to model by instruction and discipline; to mold by influence, etc.; to train. "'T is education forms the common mind." "Thus formed for speed, he challenges the wind."
3.
To go to make up; to act as constituent of; to be the essential or constitutive elements of; to answer for; to make the shape of; said of that out of which anything is formed or constituted, in whole or in part. "The diplomatic politicians... who formed by far the majority."
4.
To provide with a form, as a hare. See Form, n., 9. "The melancholy hare is formed in brakes and briers."
5.
(Gram.) To derive by grammatical rules, as by adding the proper suffixes and affixes.
6.
(Elec.) To treat (plates) so as to bring them to fit condition for introduction into a storage battery, causing one plate to be composed more or less of spongy lead, and the other of lead peroxide. This was formerly done by repeated slow alternations of the charging current, but now the plates or grids are coated or filled, one with a paste of red lead and the other with litharge, introduced into the cell, and formed by a direct charging current.


Form  v. i.  
1.
To take a form, definite shape, or arrangement; as, the infantry should form in column.
2.
To run to a form, as a hare.
To form on (Mil.), to form a lengthened line with reference to (any given object) as a basis.


suffix
-form  suff.  A suffix used to denote in the form or shape of, resembling, etc.; as, valiform; oviform.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Form" Quotes from Famous Books



... Cyril laughed. "The smoke was too thick to see anything about them, and I should not know them if I met them to-day; and, besides, when you only see a young person in her nightdress, it is hard to form any opinion as to ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... Walpole and Wyat. It was backed by a rookery of old and enormous elms. It was approached on one side by a fine avenue of limes, and was otherwise surrounded by gardens with gray walls or secretive laurel hedges. Here was a water tank in the form of a Strawberry Hill chapel. Here was a greenhouse unaltered since the days of George II. Everywhere, though everything was antique, there were signs of punctilious care, and morning by morning a bevy of female villagers would be raking the gravel paths and turning them into weedless silver. ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... modish and becoming, and her shoes were the admiration and envy of half the girls at the school. Dorothy Knerr used to say that "Mary Louise's clothes always looked as if they grew on her," but that may have been partially accounted for by the grace of her slim form and her unconscious but distinctive poise of bearing. Few people would describe Mary Louise Burrows as beautiful, while all would agree that she possessed charming manners. And she was fifteen—an age when many girls are both awkward ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... the Satires, [69] and the three Epistles which form the second book, are devoted to literary criticism, and these have always been regarded as among the most interesting of Horace's compositions. His opinions on previous and contemporary poetry are given with emphasis, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... activity. Action proceeding from inner impulse (Selbsthaeligkeit) was the one thing needful, and here Froebel as usual refers to God: "God's every thought is a work, a deed." As God is the Creator, so must man be a creator also. Living acting, conceiving,—these must form a triple cord within every child of man, though the sound now of this string, now of that may preponderate, and then again of ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel


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