formal

IPA: fˈɔrmʌɫ

(clothing) An evening gown.
An event with a formal dress code.
(programming) A formal parameter.
(uncountable) Formalin.
An acetal formed from formaldehyde.
(Oxbridge slang) Ellipsis of formal hall.. [(Oxbridge) A formal meal held in a college hall, generally with a grace, waiting staff and a set menu with multiple courses; usually held once or twice per week.]

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.
(mathematics) Relating to mere manipulation and construction of strings of symbols, without regard to their meaning.

Examples of "formal" in Sentences

In this book, the term formal thought disorder is used to refer to the aphasialike utterances of patients.
If the formal is allowed here, wouldn't 'Usted desea algún agua' be the question of 'Do you want some agua?
But so keen for symmetry, for all the term formal beauty implies, is Chopin, that seldom does his morbidity madden, his voluptuousness poison.
This claim is anachronistic in that it presupposes Aristotle's own novel view that a complete explanation must encompass four factors: what he called the formal, material, efficient, and final causes.
Well, with China, we have a, what we call formal bilaterals, which is just I sit down with the Chinese Foreign Minister, there are officials there, there are note takers and record keepers; it's a formal meeting.
M. O'BRIEN: Ben Hatfield, who is the chief executive officer of the company which owns the Sago M.ne, number one, said as he tried to explain what happened that the company never made what he called a formal announcement.
As a formal theory (in Husserl's sense of ˜formal™, i.e., as opposed to ˜material™) mereology is simply an attempt to lay down the general principles underlying the relationships between an entity and its constituent parts, whatever the nature of the entity, just as set theory is an attempt to lay down the principles underlying the relationships between a set and its members.