formal

Plural: formals

Noun

• A formal social event, especially one requiring evening dress.
• a lavish dance requiring formal attire
• a gown for evening wear
• An evening gown.
• An event with a formal dress code.
• A formal parameter.
• Ellipsis of formal hall.
• Formalin.
• An acetal formed from formaldehyde.

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"
• (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"

Adjective Satellite

• characteristic of or befitting a person in authority
  • "formal duties"
• represented in simplified or symbolic form
• logically deductive
  • "formal proof"
• refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a royal court

Adj

• Being in accord with established forms.
• Official.
• Relating to the form or structure of something.
• Relating to formation.
• Ceremonial or traditional.
• Proper, according to strict etiquette; not casual.
• Organized; well-structured and planned.
• In accordance with a methodological framework with well-defined rules or laws; rigorous.
• Relating to mere manipulation and construction of strings of symbols, without regard to their meaning.

Examples

• A set of words can be formal cognates only if they can be derived from a common ancestor by regular sound laws.
• Despite efforts by limnologists and freshwater biologists to create a formal definition of “pond”, there is still no universal distinction between a “pond” and a “lake.”
• Formal linguistics ignores the vocabulary of languages and focuses solely on their grammar.
• Formal series are defined without any reference to convergence.
• Formal wear must be worn at my wedding!
• He's always very formal, and I wish he'd relax a bit.
• I'd like to make a formal complaint.
• Jenny took Sam to her Year 12 formal.
• Only formal proofs, which derive theorems logically from their given axioms, are considered satisfactory in modern mathematics.
• She spoke formal English, without any dialect.
• The formal stage is a critical part of any child's development.
• The Scrabble tournament felt like a FORMAL affair, given the intense competition and silence.
• When they became a formal club the rowers built a small boathouse.

Synonyms

ball, conventional, courtly, dinner dress, dinner gown, evening gown, schematic, stately

Antonyms

informal

Related Words

form, hemiformal

Anagrams of formal