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Formal   /fˈɔrməl/   Listen
Formal

adjective
1.
Being in accord with established forms and conventions and requirements (as e.g. of formal dress).  "Formal dress" , "A formal ball" , "The requirement was only formal and often ignored" , "A formal education"  Antonym: informal.
2.
Characteristic of or befitting a person in authority.  "An official banquet"
3.
(of spoken and written language) adhering to traditional standards of correctness and without casual, contracted, and colloquial forms.  Antonym: informal.
4.
Represented in simplified or symbolic form.  Synonyms: conventional, schematic.
5.
Logically deductive.
6.
Refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a royal court.  Synonyms: courtly, stately.
noun
1.
A lavish dance requiring formal attire.  Synonym: ball.
2.
A gown for evening wear.  Synonyms: dinner dress, dinner gown, evening gown.



Related searches:
formal garden
formal logic
formal semantics
formality
formalness
formalwear
semi-formal
semiformal


WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University


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"Formal" Quotes from Famous Books



... is interested in the nature and derivation of governmental institutions and establishments in Europe, in any but the formal respect, should be able to satisfy his curiosity by looking over the shoulders of the professed students of Political Science. Quite properly and profitably that branch of scholarship is occupied with the authentic pedigree of these institutions, and ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... threw Dona Isabel into a flutter; the woman could scarcely contain her curiosity when she came to meet him, for he was not the sort of man to inconvenience himself by mere social visits. Their first formal greetings over, Don Mario surveyed the bare living-room and ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... modern English sense, may perhaps be defined as a religious song, less formal and solemn than the ordinary Church hymn—an expression of popular and often naive devotional feeling, a thing intended to be sung outside rather than within church walls. There still linger about the word some echoes of its original ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... present relations might never have existed. I must ask your congratulations also," he continued, turning toward the major and his daughter. "My aunt and I have in a sense adopted each other. I came hither to pay her a formal call, and have ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... them by the consul for the united kingdoms, Clausen, who spared no pains to make the stay of the expedition at Naples honouring to the mother-country and as pleasant as possible to the guests, as well as in arranging the more formal details of the visit. We had besides the joy of meeting in Italy our comrade from the severe wintering of 1872-3, Eugenio Parent, who soon after had the misfortune to be in the tower of the ironclad Duilio, when the large Armstrong cannon placed there burst, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold


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