formal
for·mal
adjective
1.
being in accord with established forms and conventions and requirements (as e.g. of formal dress)
- “pay one”
- “;”
- “;”
- “;”
- “;”
2.
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”
4.
represented in simplified or symbolic form
Origin
From Middle English formel, borrowed from Old French formel, from Latin fōrmālis, from fōrma (“form”); equivalent to form + -al.
Phrases
- business formal
- formal cause
- formal charge
- formal education
- formal equivalence
- formal fallacy
- formal grammar
- formal heresy
- formal swap
Related words
Word family
See also
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.